An “unprecedented” number of murder investigations this year could see Gwent Police hire detectives on “zero-hour” style contracts to cope with demand.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough said the force would normally see two or three murder probes a year, but has launched 11 in the past 10 months.
As a result it has had to fund record amounts of overtime payments and take neighbourhood officers away from community policing duties to cope with the demand.
Hobrough said the 1,535 officer-strong force would use the additional detectives if the same trend continues next year, but did not specify where they would come from or how the scheme would work.
Hobrough told Monmouthshire councillors that if demand continued he would consider cheaper alternatives to support investigations such as an “almost zero hours-type situation” to conduct interviews or special investigations outside the force’s boundary.
“But that has to be of the same quality,” he said, adding that he did not want to risk burnout among his staff.
He said: “They are the same people going to these incidents… They are young officers doing an outstanding job and I want to make sure we are looking after them and they stay with us long term.”
The chief constable described one particular dog attack involving a baby as an “absolute tragedy”, adding: “Our neighbourhood officers were the first on the scene, it’s left trauma, it is bound to.
“They’ve been to the two murder scenes [in Monmouthshire] which were particularly harrowing incidents. It’s about making sure we look after the teams, to support them and keep them in service and healthy and leave healthy.”