Dorset Police news site

Information for media

Dorset Police's Corporate Communications and Engagement Department deals with many thousands of media enquiries every year. It provides journalists with interviews and information regarding ongoing incidents, serious crime and policy issues. The teams are also responsible for issuing a variety of proactive content, such as witness appeals, investigation and court updates as well as other news releases each month to the media and online. In addition, media officers provide 24/7 on-call advice to officers, assistance for victims of crime and support to partner agencies.

Media enquiries

We are only able to take enquiries from accredited journalists and other media representatives. We must justify our work and, therefore, we are unfortunately not resourced to assist students, citizen journalists, amateur film-makers or with any other enquiries that will not result in information being widely published.

Please be aware that we log all media contact on a secure database, comprising the name, organisation and contact details of the enquirer, the questions asked and replies given. This is done for auditing and legally required disclosure purposes.

Media enquiries are dealt with by the relevant team – Media and Communications for incidents, investigations, operational matters and related communications campaigns and Corporate Communications for wider corporate issues.

The media office is open between 7.30am and 5.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays). Outside these hours, enquiries can be made to the Force Command Centre via 101. Simple enquiries in relation to current incidents can be answered by the Force Command Centre if operational commitments allow. Enquiries about ongoing incidents that are operationally-critical, but more complex may be referred to the on-call media officer. Enquiries that are not relating to ongoing incidents and are not deemed operationally-critical will be passed to the Corporate Communications and Engagement Department to respond during office hours.

During critical live incidents, our focus will be on providing regular updates on our channels. Therefore, please monitor our website and main social media channels for updates. If a major incident is declared, we will be collaborating with the other emergency services and the agency with primacy will be confirmed. We will work closely with other agencies to co-ordinate our messages to the public. We will prioritise the use of social media channels for fast-time messages and update. Our main accounts are https://x.com/dorsetpolice and https://www.facebook.com/dorsetpolice.

Requests for statistics

If your enquiry is purely about statistics, you are advised to first research the matter on the Dorset Police Publication Scheme website to see if the information you want is already available or other websites such as www.police.uk. If the data is not already published, please submit your enquiry to the Freedom of Information team, who are better placed to research statistical information. The Corporate Communications and Engagement Department can be approached to provide a response to any questions arising from statistics.

Follow-up enquiries to social media posts

We also publish a wealth of information on social media. Where this appears on the Force's main accounts – Dorset Police on Facebook and @dorsetpolice on X – we can assist with any follow-up enquiries. However, we do not have the capacity to respond to enquiries about the many posts on local policing team accounts. For follow-up enquiries on these posts, please make contact using the same social media channel. When setting up a Force social media account, officers and staff agree to respond to any follow-up questions they generate, whether from the media or the public.

Media filming requests

We receive a large number of filming requests each week relating to both operational and non-operational matters. We are only able to support a fraction of the opportunities we are presented with.

We value openness and recognise the role of documentaries in showing the public the realities of policing in action. However, we need to balance this against the requirement for confidentiality, possible disruption to operations arising from filming, the demand on operational policing and our capacity as an organisation to provide the necessary support, to ensure filming is carried out appropriately, legally and safely.

Facilitating filming with our officers and staff can involve significant resources and it is important that they can carry out their work with minimal disruption. Therefore, there must be a clear business case in terms of value to the public, and a policing purpose or need for the Force to agree to take part. Agreement will always be subject to current demand and resourcing. If access for filming is granted, Dorset Police may seek to be reimbursed for the time. These costs will be met by the production company or individual undertaking the filming.

To help us consider your request effectively, please complete the following form. A decision will be made as quickly as possible and you will be notified.