Police have opened the doors to their electronic world as they hunt criminals on the internet – including anyone inciting riots.

Officers from Cheshire Police’s eForensics department use their computer expertise to trace wrongdoers.

Among their main tasks jobs is to catch people who try to stir up trouble on social media sites.

After the recent unrest in Manchester and other cities, several people across Cheshire were arrested for posting inflammatory messages on Facebook.

The man who heads the department which includes the Hi-Tech Crime Unit is Det Sgt Andy Dodd.

 He said: “Posting a social network message encouraging crime or disorder is like throwing a brick through a shop window when a police officer is standing next to you.”

Monitoring and capturing material which has been put on sites such as Facebook and Twitter is a rapidly-growing area of the unit’s work.

Officers trawl the sites after tip-offs from the public to ‘capture’ the posted message. The unit can then begin its investigation - which can take months.

DC Peter Lee said: “Now social networking is an important area of life for many people they use it for communicating all types of information.

“All this activity is traceable.”

But the majority of the officers’ time – 80 per cent – is spent investigating child pornography cases.