The Met Police could start to use drones, launched from the top of buildings, to catch suspect by getting to a crime scene in less than two minutes
15:20, 24 Oct 2025
The Metropolitan Police could start to use drones to chase down suspects fleeing from cops.
Remote drones, fitted with high-definition cameras, have been launched from the tops of buildings in a trial by Scotland Yard. They will feed back intelligence to help officers, both on the ground and in control rooms, to catch suspects. These drones are cheaper and easier for police to use, compared to helicopters, and police have said these devices could get to a crime scene within two minutes.
The drones will be operated in response to a 999 call and launched remotely from the force's control room, with a trained operator piloting the device.
Footage can then be streamed from the crime scene to officers on the ground or in an office. The Met said the new drones are quicker, quieter, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than police helicopters, while delivering the same operational effects.
The pilot programme, known as Drone as First Responder (DFR), is being introduced in London under the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC)'s drones programme. The project has initially launched in Islington, with the Met aiming to roll it out to two more sites across London before the end of the year, covering the West End and Hyde Park.
The drones are housed in special boxes on the roofs of selected police buildings, where they sit charging and waiting for a call to launch, the force said. The Met's control room will make the decision to deploy a drone and it will be remotely launched to the incident.
Once above a scene, the drone's imagery will be transmitted in real-time to the specific control room or mobile user, while also recording footage for evidence. At the end of the deployment, the drone will return to its landing area and the weather-proof box will close so it can be charged and prepared for its next mission.
Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, the national lead for drones, said: "We are building a Met that is more precise and efficient than ever before, and this new technology gives us a vital new tool to tackle crime in the capital."
He added: "By getting that immediate response with a drone, we're going to have more precise information, we're capturing best evidence at the very earliest opportunity, but most importantly, where scenes are chaotic or witnesses are confused, it allows us to inform our own decisions about how many officers, which assets we should deploy, and critically, if suspects or offenders are making away from the scene, we can quickly identify them and bring them into custody without the need for large, expansive area searches."
He also said drones are traditionally piloted by someone who always has to be able to see that device and watch it flying, but these "will fly autonomously by itself to a scene". A remote pilot can then take control of that drone and use it for its policing purpose, then the device will autonomously fly back to its base.
Taylor explained the benefit of this and said: "So it provides more flexibility, more agility in our response, and ensures that it's far more rapid than you would ordinarily get from a line of sight drone."
Superintendent Taryn Evans, who leads the NPCC Drones Programme and the pilot for the Met, said: "We've been running trials of the programme in several different police forces with a range of operating environments from urban to rural and the technology has proven a gamechanger in many incidents."
Other police forces, such as Norfolk Constabulary, Cleveland Police, West Midlands Police, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary and Thames Valley Police Joint Operations Unit are also in the trial phase of this technology, which has been pioneered by the NPCC, the Met said.