A NEW device enabling police to carry out on-the-spot fingerprinting could be introduced in North Yorkshire.

Local police say they are taking a "very keen interest" in a trial being carried out elsewhere in the country, and have not ruled out embracing the scheme themselves.

Under the scheme, officers carry an innovative hand-held reader, called Lantern, which can search 6.5 million records on the National Automated Fingerprint System.

Police can take prints from a potential suspect while out on patrol, and get a result within five minutes.

Officers in West Yorkshire are among several forces in England and Wales using the scheme, and North Yorkshire Police say they are following its success closely.

It is hoped the scheme will save police time, and more than £2.2 million a year.

Force spokesman Tony Lidgate said: "We are watching the pilot tests with interest.

"It might be that it does not work, but we will take a very keen interest and once we have seen how it works, we will think about what we might do on it."

Mr Lidgate said it would be "silly" to pre-empt the pilot by saying whether they would follow suit. He said North Yorkshire was not sending any officers to West Yorkshire to see the device in use first-hand, but said they would liaise with the neighbouring force once the trial was over.

Police in Luton are the first to use the reader, which is also being piloted in Essex, Hertfordshire, North Wales, and the West Midlands, as well as by the Met and British Transport Police.

The BTP will use it in their counter-terrorism unit in London next week.

Fingerprints can only be taken from people voluntarily, because officers cannot yet legally take fingerprints on the street.

Launching the scheme, police minister Tony McNulty said: "The new technology will speed up the time it takes for police to identify individuals at the roadside, enabling them to spend more time on the frontline and reducing any inconvenience for innocent members of the public."