Nottinghamshire Police rolling out new digivans to deliver better service for crime victims

The force has purchased two unmarked ‘digivans’, so digital evidence can be copied at crime scenes, eliminating the need for devices to taken into police stations, where backlogs can leave victims without their phone for months.

The £50,000 vans include state-of-the-art technology which enables targeted and specific searches to limit intrusion.

Detective Inspector Mark Booth, who leads the force’s digital evidence unit, said: “These vans enable us to take technology to a crime scene, allowing officers to examine devices at the earliest opportunity at any location and, when appropriate, return them immediately.

“The equipment and software also gives us faster access to the most relevant digital evidence.

“This helps reduce the number of devices that need to be retained for further examination, in turn helping to reduce backlogs.”

The growing digital footprint of victims and perpetrators has led to a sharp rise in the volume of data police forces are having to examine when investigating crimes over the past 15 years, particularly in sexual assault cases.

This has led to some forces reporting a digital evidence backlog of 12-18 months, meaning some victims have had to wait for more than a year to have their devices returned – an investigation by Channel 4 News revealed a backlog of more than 20,000 digital devices waiting to be examined by forces across England and Wales.

Nottinghamshire Police came out as one of the best performing forces, with just 31 phones, tablets and computers waiting to be examined which had all been triaged.

Det Insp Booth said the digivans will further improve the force’s performance.

He said: “Thanks to these vans, we will be able to quickly identify what is evidence, extract that data and then give the phone back.

“We won’t need to take it away, or put it in an evidence bag, or take it to a lab where it might sit for six months.”

The investment in digivans comes after the Government’s Transforming Forensics programme put forward £5 million to help police forces improve how they respond to rape or serious sexual offences and other serious crimes.al violence.”