CIVILIANS have been given access to marked police cars in East Yorkshire.

Following a Freedom of Information request, Humberside Police revealed it had two recorded incidents of support staff within the force being allowed to use emergency response vehicles.

The request was sent to all 45 forces in the country, but Humberside was one of only seven which had allowed civilian staff to use the marked cars.

A Humberside Police spokeswoman said: "There are two members of support staff at Humberside Police who have use of a vehicle equipped with response equipment; Assistant Chief Officer (Support) and Assistant Chief Officer (Human Resources).

"Neither of these employees have responded to emergency incidents and neither would they as they do not have the police powers or training to do so. The vehicles provided to them have response equipment installed so that the vehicles can, if required, be used by the force to supplement the operational fleet for such things as special events and royal visits."

The spokeswoman also said one of the vehicles is fitted to the same specification as the force's 4x4 roads policing and firearms vehicles, "and so it is made available for driver training on a regular basis as and when required".

Among the other forces who had allowed civilian staff to use emergency response vehicles were West Yorkshire Police, whose director of finance and business had used an official vehicle, and South Yorkshire Police, who had two marked cars which were used by the force's director of finance and the director of IT.