TONIGHT we publish Hugh Bayley's police mugshot. Fortunately, the York MP was not a suspect but was carrying out some detective work of his own, into the police's video identification suite.

This has proved to be a real winner. Using computer technology to bring an ID line-up to a laptop saves time, manpower and money. Officers no longer have to cast around for members of the public to make up the numbers. They can bring the parade to the witness, rather than the other way around.

And it must be less traumatic for a victim to look at a computer image of the criminal rather than come almost face-to-face with them.

Updated: 10:48 Monday, July 14, 2003