THREE murder investigations in East Lancashire in the last 10 days mean cuts to the force’s senior detectives must be ‘carefully looked at’.

Former Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell was head of the Force Major Investigation Team, which deals with murder, manslaughter and the most serious criminal cases in the county.

However, it is one of many departments losing numbers as part of ongoing reviews.

After four people were found killed in Clayton-le-Moors, Burnley and Nelson in just over a week, Mr Gradwell said reducing specially trained officers would leave FMIT ‘stretched’.

He said: “We’ve got to accept first of all these are challenging times.

"You can’t have officers waiting for jobs to happen and modern management practices have to be implemented in the police.

“Having said that, you still need experienced specially trained detectives to deal with the most serious jobs.

“By reducing the numbers in FMIT and not keeping people skilled up in that area, it is possible cases will fall down at the prosecution stage and vital evidence missed during the investigation stage.

“If you are policing the most complicated and serious incidents with inexperienced or unproven people there is a risk of failure on the most serious cases. That’s the balance taken with cutting costs.”

Mr Gradwell said the unpredictable nature of FMIT work meant that reducing its capability could leave them ‘stretched’ when a clutch of murders occur, as has happened recently.

Lancashire must save £50million over the next four years and last week Chief Constable Steve Finnigan admitted he could no longer protect frontline policing.

According to the Lancashire branch of the Police Federation, FMIT is already losing 17 officers - one superintendent, two inspectors, four sergeants and 10 detective constables.

Three teams covering Lancashire have been reduce to two, with a senior investigating officer covering Eastern, Pennine and Southern, and another looking after Western, Northern and Central.