The North Wales Police have revealed their latest weapons against crime.

Last Thursday the North Wales Police launched their new Drone Unit with a demonstration after months of trailing and testing.

A total of about £50,000 has been spent on the project which has been used to purchase the drones, technology and train up 15 police officers and staff through the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The drones, which have already been used in a number of emergency situations, including a recent Deeside fire, will capture high quality video and still images and be used to assist with searches for missing people, road traffic collision investigations and major crime incidents.

Inspector Craig Jones from the Force’s Operational Planning Unit said: "We've never had anything like this before. What the drones bring us is that flexibility at a much, much reduced cost to give us that air service that we can put out there.

"It allows us to do the job of many, many police officers when it comes to things like doing a search for a missing person for instance or if perhaps for example if someone was lying unconscious in a rural area we'd be able to search for them with a drone with a thermal imagining camera and it would do the job of 20 people that could take many many hours.

"It's a no brainer for North Wales Police. It's new technology and we have no doubt at all that it's going to come on in leaps and bounds in the coming years and I think quite literally the sky's the limit."

The teams currently only has two drones but will look to expand the unit in the future.

Deputy Chief Constable Gareth Pritchard said: "There is a strong operational business case and a strong financial business case and just to support operational officers in doing their job. The crime team will be using it, missing person searches, serious crime scenes, its a useful tactic.

"Clearly we need to justify the spending and learn about it and show how they are assisting our policing operations so hopefully we can expand that in the future."