THE varied work of one of the region’s police teams is being captured on film for a television documentary that will air this summer.

The Cleveland & Durham Specialist Operations Unit will feature in the next series of Channel 5 show Police Interceptors.

A film crew joined the unit, which has more than 100 officers and includes road policing and dog handling teams, on Tuesday, March 17 and will follow its work for 12 weeks.

Already the cameras have witnessed the unit dealing with a dangerous dog, a serious road collision and arresting a suspected drug driver and recovering cash and drugs from the vehicle.

The Durham and Cleveland forces hope that when the ten episodes are shown in the summer it will give the public a greater understanding of the range of the work they do to protect the public.

Inspector Ed Turner, of Cleveland & Durham Specialist Operations Unit, said: “Officers are getting involved on a voluntary basis, some want to protect their privacy for private or policing reasons but others are really keen.

“We got involved because it is an opportunity to really showcase the huge variety of work we do, in difficult circumstances, to protect members of the public.

“The filming should follow the journey from an incident and through the investigation.

“We hope it will raise our profile with the people of County Durham and Cleveland so they can have confidence in what we are doing to keep people safe.”