Cheshire's police commissioner stressed the important work of behind-the-scenes officers when he revealed there are an estimated 700,000 active paedophiles online in the UK.

John Dwyer said it was important residents understood that officers tackling cyber-crime were as important as those on the street.

"The National Crime Agency said they'd estimated that we have, in this country, 700,000 active paedophiles online. It's shocking. I can see the surprise on your faces," he told Cheshire East councillors at last week's scrutiny committee meeting.

"I'm under pressure from the public to actually give a more obvious police presence on our streets but there's a need to actually accept and understand there's a need to police the cyber world as well.

"Not only have we got paedophile activity we've also, of course, got cyber-crime where people are being subjected to bank account fraud and all that sort of stuff.

"So there's an awful lot of crime activity going on behind the lines. It's not all about having officers on our streets."

The police commissioner told the committee that by end of this year Cheshire will have 2,345 officers, which is the highest figure in the county since 1974.

Sandbach councillor Laura Crane (Lab) later pointed out that the population has nearly doubled since the 1970s.

Cllr Laura Crane

Mr Dwyer outlined some of his successes since he came to office in May 2021.

He said the time for calls to the non-emergency 101 number to be answered had been slashed from between 40 to 60 minutes when he first came to office, to an average of six minutes now.

With regard to 999 calls, he said the target was for officers to be at the scene within 15 minutes of the call being received.

"In fact, the evidence is that we're getting there, 90 per cent of the time, in 10 minutes or less," said the police boss.

And he said his office had secured more than £8m of government funding for safer street initiatives.

He referred to the GoodSAM initiative, whereby police can use streaming and location tracking software on smartphones during emergency calls to help safeguard people in danger.

"It was actually designed for safer streets for women but actually it applies to anybody," said Mr Dwyer. "So if you're feeling vulnerable whilst out on the streets, and even at your home, and you've got a smartphone, you ring 999 to force control room and tell them you're being followed or stalked or whatever it is, they will then send a link to your smartphone, press the link and you're then in video contact with the control room operator.

"That allows that control room operator to also see what it is that's making you feel uncomfortable whilst, at the same time, they're deploying resources to help