Deepings officer’s delight as app sales double

Paul Cooper, 30, launched Pocket Sergeant last year in a bid to help police officers and staff carry out the daily duties.

The Mercury featured Paul’s story in February and since then, the phone application has made a name for itself, doubling its sales. It has been downloaded more than 6,500 times - an average of 600 downloads a month.

It is currently in the top 10 best selling apps in the books and reference chart on the Google Play store.

Paul, who lives in Market Deeping with his wife Linda and works as a police officer in Spalding, said: ““Everything that we have achieved with Pocket Sergeant has been done on a limited budget.

“This is my passion project and I was able to jump start the app through my own efforts. I even built the website, even though I had never done any kind of web building previously.

“We are so grateful for the success of Pocket Sergeant.”

Other successes included exceeding 10,000 followers on Twitter as well as attracting a sponsor and advertisers, which is exciting for Paul who self-funded the project. He worked alongside app developers Sockmonkey Studios.

Pocket Sergeant enables its users to search through an A-Z list of criminal law definitions, learn whether there is sufficient evidence to charge a suspect, and find out when a crime report should be submitted.

Individuals can also utilise the checklist section of what to cover when taking witness statements, a reference library which houses PDF documents such as the Codes of Practice; a contact list and a calendar. The app was initially created as a time management tool for police officers, but is also attracting attention from civilian staff.

The Pocket Sergeant app is £3.99 and is available for download from both the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store.