A crime-busting team is celebrating six months of coming down hard on Hove's criminals.

The crime car squad started with two officers - dubbed Starsky and Hutch after the Seventies TV cop duo - who targeted known criminals.

The team has been so successful it has now grown to six officers and there are plans for it to double in size when Brighton and Hove police divisions merge in April.

The team has arrested 170 suspects, filed 617 intelligence reports and carried out 435 checks since its formation.

It has had a dramatic impact on drug dealing in Hove, seizing crack cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and cannabis worth tens of thousands of pounds.

Thousands of pounds has been confiscated from dealers arrested by the team.

Sergeant Paul Furnell and PCs Deano Carlin, Rob Baldwin, Matt Potter, Roger Burns and Andy Salmon target drug dealers, car thieves and burglars.

Mr Furnell had the idea of setting up the crime car team and convinced his bosses it would work.

Now the Hove and Shoreham division has the lowest crime rates in Sussex.

He said: "It might have been my idea but it is not me who goes out in the car and gets the results.

"I have never met such a dedicated team of officers in my 12 years in the police.

They are out there late at night and early in the morning. Most villains know the team by name and sight now because they have been stopped and spoken to so often."

The team is in the running for a top award which recognises outstanding police work.

It has been nominated for the Chief Constable's Commendation by Inspector Stuart Harrison, second-in-command of the division.