“STANDING in the rain, on my own, in the dark, guarding a crime scene. I may be here for a while. All part of my job so I don’t really mind,” tweets PC Ed Rogerson.

The North Yorkshire beat officer regularly patrols the streets of Harrogate like generations of police have before him.

But it is his talent at solving crime by social media such as Facebook and Twitter that sets this kind of policing well and truly in the present day.

Since 2009, he has used the medium to send regular updates from his beat. He now has 4,212 followers, who get to find out where he is patrolling, and receive updates on local crime and investigations.

He also answers questions, ranging from clarification on traffic regulations to messages of thanks from the public.

He discourages people from reporting crime on Twitter, explaining that he might be offduty and it needs to be dealt with via the oldfashioned telephone, although that does not stop people trying.

PC Rogerson was one of the first uniformed police officers to use the micro-blogging site to speak to residents directly and reassure them he is continually dealing with crime.

“Effectively I am increasing my visibility without being seen,” he says.

“It is rare I walk down the main roads where the public are. I always take the little snickleways and back streets because that is what the criminals are doing. Sometimes I might be in plain clothes and other times uniform, but at least I can let people know I am on duty.”

PC Rogerson initially turned to Twitter to create a virtual police beat with his Twitter account, @hotelalpha9 after becoming frustrated at the general perception that there were no police on the streets.

He said: “At the time, I was covering an area of Harrogate called Starbeck. I would be out on my beat every day, going to the same locations, the same streets, the same problem areas.

“Every day I was down there, a member of the public would say, ‘you’re the first police officer I’ve seen here in years’.

“It drove me mad because I was there every day. But just because these people weren’t there at the same time, they assumed I wasn’t there.

“So I wanted to use Twitter as an extra way of getting the message across to the public, letting people know I was out and about in the community.

“And if I wasn’t, I could still give out crime prevention advice, or tell them I was waiting for evidence or doing paperwork.”

IT also helps him reach a wide audience within seconds. “If a burglar is on the street, I’ll print off a letter and post it through every house on the street and give them crime prevention advice.

“It’s still an important thing to do, but Twitter is probably getting the message out to even more people.

“Printing and posting 200 letters will take me a whole day, whereas with Twitter we can sent it to 200 people in a couple of minutes.”

Crime-fighting via social networks had already paid strong dividends for PC Rogerson.

He began using social media in 2008, when he was trying to solve a problem with graffiti in Harrogate. After initial investigations and talks in schools failed to produce any results, he grabbed a digital camera and went out and filmed the graffiti himself, with an appeal asking people to tell them who did it. Then he put the footage on Facebook and YouTube.

The shaky video footage worked, and within a few days, the offenders were arrested and prosecuted.

PC Rogerson said: “There was no video editing or television presenters, but that added to the effectiveness of it.

“It was obvious it wasn’t some kind of wellmanaged or scripted footage. It was an appeal straight from us to the public.”

However, there are plenty of pitfalls for police who decide to use Twitter.

The Metropolitan Police has issued disciplinary proceedings against 28 police officers for breaching rules on social networking sites.

Others have been sacked for comments that were viewed as bringing their force into disrepute.

Police have a thin blue line to tread when using the social network.

“Not everyone likes the police, and putting myself online could potentially put me at increased risk from organised crime, says PC Rogerson. “I have got to be sensible. I don’t tweet stuff about friends and family.

“You always have to be careful not to say too much as well. For example, I wouldn’t give the names of suspects or give away an investigation.

“But people can see I am dealing with criminals or speaking to the Crown Prosecution Service – these are things people do not normally witness us doing.”