WILTSHIRE police have become the first in the world to put digital pen to paper. They took part in trials on new digital pens made by Hewlett-Packard.

The pens recognise handwriting when police fill in forms, meaning the information can be downloaded directly onto the computer, cutting out the need to input data from forms.

Eight officers were involved in the six-week trial and tested the digital pen on Fixed Penalty Notice forms, the forms used for giving parking tickets.

Sgt Craig Hardy said the system needed fine-tuning.

"The pen is quite chunky and the cap doesn't fit on the other end while in use but otherwise I had no problem using it," he said.

"I dropped my pen on the road a couple of times and it was left in a hot car for hours on end, neither of which caused any damage so the pens are pretty robust."

During the trials the officers handed out 117 penalty notices using the system but only half the forms were totally accurate when data was inputted from the pens.