The latest intake of 50 new student officers took place at the Police Training Centre in North Hull yesterday (Tuesday) bringing the total numbers of officers at Humberside Police to 2074 – the biggest number in 10 years.

Chief Constable Lee Freeman said: “We’re delighted to welcome yet another new intake of officers into the force.

“Since 2017 we have recruited, trained and deployed over 800 new officers.  This has allowed us to replace those retiring as well as provide additional new officer posts.

“And we will be recruiting more officers next year with our portion of the national police officer recruitment programme.”

He continued: “When I took over as Chief Constable in 2017, we had reduced our officer numbers to 1550 because of austerity cuts, but it feels like a very different picture now and the additional officers have been well received by our communities in Hull, East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire.

“During my time as Chief, our communities have consistently told us they wanted to see more officers on the beat, they wanted their calls answering more quickly, they wanted to see local stations re-opening and they wanted us to investigate – and solve – more crimes.  The extra officers are helping us to achieve this.”

The new student officers will now complete a 17-week intensive training programme, where they will learn all aspects of police powers, legislation, how to respond to incidents and investigate crime.

They will also learn how to deal with victims, witnesses and suspects, as well first aid and officer safety training.

After this initial training period is completed, all 50 will hit the streets throughout the area for 10 weeks, accompanied by a tutor constable.