Situation critical

Imagine you are a newly promoted sergeant who has just heard that a woman's body has been found in some nearby woods. Officers are at the scene but no other details are available.

How big is this case going to be? Will your actions and those of your force have an impact on community confidence and, more importantly, the confidence of the victim's friends and family? In other words, is this a critical incident?

This is just one of the scenarios new sergeants will face as part of a new training package put together by ACPO and the National Policing Improvement Agency.

The package, the first to come from the newly created National College of Police Leadership, is designed to teach frontline sergeants how to spot potential 'critical incidents' and what steps they should take to deal with them properly.