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Detective superintendent Charlie McMurdie of the Metropolitan Police Service - one of the architects of the Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) announced today - has proposed recruiting individuals from industry to assist the unit with investigations.

silicon.com's e-Crime Crackdown campaign is calling for a national UK cyber crime police unit.

The unit will provide leadership and expertise to co-ordinate investigations nationwide and collate reports from police forces across the country, as well as offering a central point of contact for reporting e-crime.

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Speaking at an event organised by payments processing company SecureTrading in London last week, McMurdie admitted there are very few officers in the UK that would know what a victim of computer crime was talking about if they reported a denial of service or a phishing attack.

She added that current computer fraud investigations are unnecessarily lengthened by the lack of easy access to industry information, tying up already scarce resources.

"Industry has perhaps more expertise knowledge and access to databases than we do and for me to gather that intelligence off of a bank system or industry system is a long tedious paperwork process. I've always pushed that we need to do this in a true partnership," she said.

McMurdie also wants to establish a unit where police work with industry, so that when reports of high volume fraud come in, both are equipped to prevent, investigate and prosecute the crime together.

She said: "To that end, I'm recruiting. I'm well known for my drive around special constables, recruiting people from industry and training them up as cops to work with us for a number of days a month, supported by their companies. We are taking in secondees from industry.

"I'll take that assistance, that intelligence, that person from wherever I can to deliver a better response."