Police on the Western Isles will be hoping to avoid a mini crimewave after pledging to tweet every incident they deal with over the next three days.

The Western Isles Local Area Command, which is part of the Highlands and Islands Division of Police Scotland, said it believed the social media experiment starting today is a first for the new single force.

Staff will be kept busy letting @WIslesPolice's 1715 followers know about anything from road accidents to robberies, missing people or even murders, although there has been just one of those in more than 40 years.

The account, which urges people not to report crimes on the micro-blogging site, said of Twitter Weekend: "We will tweet every incident across the W.I [Western Isles] as it's reported!"

Local Commander, Chief Inspector Gordon Macleod, said: "We want to give the public an insight into modern day policing of the Western Isles. We already use our page for appeals, traffic information, weather warnings and display some of the work our officers do."