Crime fighting in Kent is about to get technical as bobbies on the beat get their very own hand held computers.

Officers on patrol in east Kent have be testing out the Blackberry-style systems which allow them to view information while out and about on the streets, rather than paper pushing back at the station.

In north Kent, the devices have been installed in marked police cars, to make sure all the technical niggles are worked out and resolved before the systems are rolled out countywide in Spetember.

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With every marked police car and patrolling officer in the county hitting cyber space it is hoped police will be able to keep a strong street presence and file paper work on the move rather than nipping back to the station an hour before the end of their shift to fill out forms.

Kent Police is one of 27 forces to benefit from £50million set aside by the National Policing Improvement Agency for hand-held computer.

They will get £1.9million to cover the costs of 1110 hand held computers and 150 mobile devices which will be installed to the marked patrol cars.

Ch Supt Gary Beautridge, Area Commander for north Kent said: "We're looking to move as quickly as possible to a paperless system and this is a great start.

"We are at the cutting edge of technology here in North Kent, and we have trialled these devices for the rest of our colleagues in the county. These systems will be a massive boost to them all."

PC Ormerod has been helping to trial the devices. He said: "They're fantastic systems and great tools, they're going to save us a lot of time."