A daily newspaper’s campaign to help police track down criminals by carrying a series of CCTV images online and in print is now generating an 50,000 extra web hits a month.

The Liverpool Echo’s Caught on Camera initiative saw scores of readers who logged on to a special section of the newspaper’s website call Merseyside police with information on a range of criminal activity.

Since the campaign was launched in February, around half of the 45 pictures published on the Echo’s website and in the newspaper have led to police taking action.

The regular series of articles has helped police obtain named suspects, make arrests and even take one person to court.

The campaign has also gone from strength to strength in terms of reader awareness with more than 50,000 eagle-eyed readers logging onto the special gallery last month.

Echo crime reporter Ben Rossington said: “We started with 16,000 readers looking at the special section of the website and we were obviously very pleased with that figure. But the campaign has just grown and grown and to hit and then pass 50,000 is amazing.”

Ben revealed that the origins of the Caught on Camera campaign began during a chance conversation with a police contact.

After learning that police were looking for increased publicity over a number of unsolved crimes, Ben offered the services of the Echo’s news and web pages.

Since then, almost 50 photos of people wanted in connection for various crimes have been published.

Ben added: “We are delighted with the success of the campaign and it is great to know that our readers are doing the right thing and picking up the phone.”

It is not the first time Ben and the Echo team have linked up with local police. In December, the newspaper launched the ‘Festive Fugitive’ multimedia campaign in conjunction with Crimestoppers.

Mini-wanted posters were sent out to a staggering 200,000 mobile phones in key city centre areas while the Echo also ran pictures and biographies of a dozen wanted criminals in print editions over the Christmas period.