Police work in focus on Flickr

Thousands of people all over the world are watching the work of Greater Manchester Police thanks to a popular website.

Flickr is an image-based social networking site similar to Facebook that allows users to share images with people around the world, join groups and leave comments.

GMP has the biggest official police presence on Flickr after attracting 7,000 viewers in less than three weeks.

There are hundreds of images available showing different areas of police work, from helicopters and horses to police officers and patrol cars.

The pages also include historic photographs dating back to the 1950s and a picture of a group of Peelers, which is one of the earliest known images of policing in the Greater Manchester area.

Video links are available on the site, including this year’s Christmas message from Chief Constable Peter Fahy encouraging the public to “Keep Christmas Happy”.

There is also information about other crime prevention campaigns linking back to the GMP website.

Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said: “Flickr is a fun and interesting way to interact with the public and gives people a flavour of what Greater Manchester Police is doing to keep communities safe.

“Our presence on Flickr is growing continually and we’re adding more and more photographs to show the different aspects of policing. With over 25 million users worldwide, GMP is using this new technology as another way to communicate with the public.”