REPORTS of crime can soon be made to police by email from your home computer.

Police are just weeks away from letting people use the computer instead of picking up a telephone to report minor crimes and antisocial behaviour.

In the past year, police call handlers dealt with more than one million non-emergency calls – the equivalent of 30,000 every week.

It is hoped email reporting will reduce the amount of time police spend dealing with non-emergencies – freeing them to concentrate on 999 calls.

Chief Supt Liam Macdougall, head of Thames Valley Police’s control room based in Kidlington, said: “This is for people reporting incidents which do not need someone to attend straight away.

“Incidents ranging from straight forward reports, like antisocial behaviour, which are important but can be then passed easily to the neighbourhood team.

“It opens up new channels of reporting. There are changing technologies going on.

“This is us trying to give people options and choices how they choose to report what is going on.”

Police had hoped to launch the scheme in February but it was delayed to allow for extra staff training and to iron out any technological glitches. Officers say that members of the public should be able to send their first crime emails in the first week of May but no specific date has been set.

A similar mobile phone texting reporting scheme has been delayed until the summer to ensure the email system is up an running, Mr Macdougall added.