Britains 'most-wanted criminals' website, hopefully online! |
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Sat, 19 Nov 2005 07:05
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LONDON: British police and a charity have come together to host a website, www.mostwanted-uk.org, that features the top 10 most-wanted criminals in Britain. The charity, Crimestoppers, has devised a points system to select the top ten most-wanted, mostly based on the severity of their crimes.
The site drew an unexpected 350,000 visitors in a couple of hours of its launch that it crashed. Crimestoppers is trying to add extra capacity.
The site is intended to be used as a key crime-fighting tool, enabling police to put out information about the criminals they are trying to identify or locate to the online public.
The top 10 selected will be highlighted among between 20 and 40 suspects provided each day for a national list. On the day of the launch, there were 22 suspects or criminals, including a convicted police killer who has escaped, a double murder suspect, a sex offender and two men stealing crates of lager in Humberside.
So far, 12 police forces in the country are collaborating with Crimestoppers, but all the 43 forces -- in England and Wales -- are expected to join and submit photographs or CCTV pictures of suspects. Although several forces already have their own most-wanted lists for their area, so far, there has been no facility to put up nationwide alerts online.
The public can make use of the website to go to local police sites to check any appeals being made by their home forces. They can also pass on information by anonymous e-mail or by calling Crimestoppers. There is a search facility by crime type, or hair or eye colour.
Similar "mostwanted" websites are hosted by police forces in the U.S., Argentina, Australia, France, Japan, Spain and Switzerland.
Lord Ashcroft, founder of Crimestoppers, said since nearly 60 per cent of the population is online and the site will become an essential resource for police forces. However, the best of luck accessing it, it's a little hit and miss at the moment.
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UK plagued by rampant credit and debit card fraud 