A POLICE force is giving suspects the chance to start afresh by revealing other crimes.

Clean Slate, introduced by Northumbria Police, gives offenders the opportunity to expose all their crimes and have them dealt with at the same time.

The scheme is aimed at bringing reassurance for victims that someone has faced the courts for their crime and given an appropriate sentence.

For criminals, it means all their admissions are dealt with together, saving court and police time as well as rationalising their sentences - on release they start with a clean slate.

Suspects have always had the right to ask for other offences to be taken into consideration by the courts but may have kept quiet because they thought they would not be found out.

Developments in DNA and fingerprint technology mean that new science is improving the odds on detection - and further arrest.

For people already sentenced, this triggers another sequence of criminal proceedings and the prospect of a further sentence. Sometimes this has little impact because they are already in jail or serving a community sentence.

Assistant Chief Constable David Warcup said: "The scheme benefits everyone - the victim, the offender and the criminal justice system because it ensures that someone is dealt with for the offence and that court and police time is not wasted by further investigations and proceedings."