Could police reforms make Line of Duty force a reality?

The thrilling storylines of anti-corruption unit AC-12 made the award-winning police drama Line of Duty one of the BBC's most successful recent hits.

Eagle-eyed fans of the series, starring Adrian Dunbar, Vicky McClure and Martin Compston, will have spotted references to a fictional East Midlands Constabulary.

In reality, the five million people who live in England's East Midlands are policed by five different county forces.

But could sweeping plans to reform the police service end up mirroring that fictional regional force?

On Monday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced a blueprint for what she called the "broken" policing model in England and Wales.

That shake-up will create a new National Police Service to fight the most complex cross-border crime, and cut the number of local forces in England and Wales by about two-thirds.

Mahmood hopes her plan will create economies of scale and share expertise, freeing resources for more front-line policing and speeding up response times.

Critics argue it will make the police less accountable, and risks diverting officers away from rural areas to cities with higher crime rates.

The overhaul would end the East Midlands' traditional county policing model, where separate forces cover Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

So what could replace that?

The most obvious starting point would be merging Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

Those forces are already preparing to move under the control of the East Midlands mayor, Claire Ward, after their local police and crime commissioner roles are scrapped in 2028.

The East Midlands also has England's largest regional police collaboration, which shares specialist serious crime teams that work across all five forces.

East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU) investigates murders and serious violence, and runs the region's counter-terrorism, cyber-crime and forensic services.

A new wider regional force could build on EMSOU's established infrastructure of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

However, Mahmood's plan would put much of EMSOU's existing responsibilities under the control of the new National Police Service, dubbed a "British FBI".

It is not the first time changes have been mooted for policing teams across the region.

A previous Labour home secretary, Charles Clarke, announced a plan to merge the five East Midlands police forces in March 2006, but that was abandoned after strong local opposition.

Nearly 10 years later, in 2015, Derbyshire Police decided not to join a second regional collaboration that would have shared its firearms, roads policing and dog teams, and dealt with protests and football matches.

The East Midlands Operational Support Service was scrapped several years later, after the Nottinghamshire force pulled out, branding it "costly" and "fundamentally flawed".

The force's then police and crime commissioner, Paddy Tipping, said he was "not confident" armed response teams would be close enough to respond to a terrorist attack.

An internal review added officers were covering such large distances that they were tired, and claimed wires in police vehicles had melted because of the length of "blue light runs".

Those past experiences in the East Midlands should offer valuable lessons for the future.

The Police Federation, which represents officers across England and Wales, said "fewer forces alone will not guarantee better policing".

However, the home secretary's plan has been welcomed by the National Police Chiefs' Council, as well as His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.

The National Crime Agency added the proposals would help to tackle increasingly complex threats.

So will the East Midlands eventually be policed by a single regional force, like the constabulary in Line of Duty?

That will not be clear until a formal review, due to report back in the summer, considers details of the merger plan.

But, for now, at least one police reorganisation has been confirmed.

The seventh series of Line of Duty - announced in November - will open with AC-12 disbanded, and rebranded the Inspectorate of Police Standards.

Dunbar, who plays the ethically upstanding senior officer Ted Hastings, said: "What a joy it is to know that the Three Amigos [Dunbar, McClure and Compston] will be back filming together next year.

"Delighted with the news and looking forward to those mercurial twists and turns."

Follow BBC Nottingham on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.