Missing girls: why we need national police

A hundred or so commuter motorway miles separate Walton-on-Thames in Surrey and the pretty Cambridgeshire village of Soham. In recent weeks I have spent long days in both places. Yesterday in Soham the search for missing 10-year-olds Holly Webb and Jessica Chapman reached the same fever pitch I saw a month or two ago in Waltonon-Thames as the police there stepped up the still fruitless hunt for schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Police are making no operational connections between the two sets of disappearances and there probably are none, but the outward signs are exactly the same in both places: distraught parents, grim faced detectives and hundreds of posters and makeshift shrines on lampposts and in shop windows. Above all there is the shared shock and disbelief that three healthy, brighteyed, intelligent girls were plucked from daylight streets and taken to God knows where and what fate.

The Surrey and Cambridgeshire police are investing huge efforts into their investigations. I have spent time with the Surrey squad and its boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Craig Denholme.

Yesterday I saw his desperate desire to find Milly mirrored in the face of his Cambridgeshire counterpart. The fact is these two massive investigations - murder enquiries in everything but name - are in the hands of two of the smallest county police forces in Britain: forces funded and organised to deal with the mundane normality of everyday life, not the dreadful exceptions to normality that these cases represent.

Long-term, high-profile investigations are immensely costly in terms of cash and other important police work which inevitably suffers. It cannot be right that two small forces bordering on the massive Metropolitan police area should carry the burden alone and unaided. The investigations, well conducted as they both are, highlight the creaking edifice of a 19th century police structure struggling to meet the demands of the 21st century.

I have admired much of the work of the Cambridgeshire force in these last days. But some criticisms must be made. I have never seen such high priority given to media access. It has been, in my view, a mistake to give so much information, so fast to the press. The desire to hand out a new story every day while conducting an inquiry leads to a situation in which more information is released than can first be checked.

So we had the wild goose chase of the girls' reported computer traffic - which turned out not to be true. I doubt also the wisdom of giving out so much information in such a dramatic way about the digging for bodies - and especially the accompanying reports of screams in the woods. What purpose does all this serve? The Cambridgeshire force is clearly trying to avoid criticisms of lack of openness by the police levelled during the Sarah Payne case. But openness must serve the inquiry, not distract from it.

I would not be so accommodating if it were a case of mine. Remember, too, that we are working here in a climate in which a £1 million reward is on offer for catching the killers. In general, I approve of rewards as a way of eliciting information from people who might not otherwise come forward. A million pounds is a big incentive - but also a big invitation for time-wasters to get in on the act. It certainly distorts the number of calls the police have to deal with - only to harvest criticism that they are not working efficiently enough.

I recognise how hard the two forces involved in this case are working. I salute them. I know they argue that larger forces have no better a track record than smaller ones in solving crime. Statistically they are correct.

But these investigations are different. I have watched both forces grasp the realisation that the answer to these terrifying abductions may lie outside the borders of their county. Even the suspected shallow graves were in the adjoining county of Suffolk. There is goodwill and healthy co-operation between forces, a situation not usually the case during my 25 years as a detective-when CID turf wars were routine. But the present day police organisation of forces hinders rather than helps major investigations. Incompatible computer systems, differing levels of detective experience and competing priorities all work against efficient investigations.

The system is close to meltdown and in saying that, I intend no criticism of the two hard pressed forces.

The need for supra-national squads, untrammelled by boundaries is well recognised. The National Crime Squad (NCS) and National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) have operated separately from police forces for some time. But, amazingly, neither of them investigate murder. The National Crime Squad, many of whose members are not police officers, deals with organised crime and major drug cases. NCIS has no investigative staff.

Thus, the acknowledged best of Britain's detectives in those squads have no current murder squad experience or remit to investigate murder. It is a strange situation. In the meantime, small county forces, cash-strapped and under strength take responsibility for investigations as important as those in Surrey and Cambridgeshire. Even fraud investigation has a national squad. Where, I wonder, would public priority rest, with fraud or abducted children ?

It is time for a hard look at what we believe is important and where experienced detectives are best employed. Most of the 700 or so murders committed each year in the UK are domestic or local but about 120 of those murders demand long and complex investigations. I believe we should be looking at much larger regional squads of murder squad detectives drawn from local forces for long-running, cross-border abduction or murder cases.

Regional crime squads which used to do this work no longer exist. Modern road networks, communications and the sheer scope of modern life make a mockery of our antiquated collection of 43 separate police forces. It is time for radical change - and the importance to the public of missing children investigations should force the pace of that change. To those who argue that small local forces offer best value I ask one question. Why does the single county of Yorkshire need three Chief Constables each with their separate police force?

The haunting faces of Milly and Jessica and Holly smiling out from the posters in Soham and Walton- on-Thames are high-profile examples of a much deeper national problem - that of children and others inexplicably missing but not officially regarded as dead. Investigating their disappearances and the complex murder inquiries which so often follow should be the responsibility of the nation, not individual police forces whose compass ends at a county border.