WHOEVER said crime doesn't pay had obviously never heard of identity parades.

At a rate of £10 an hour for standing still, it has to be a way of earning pin money to rival bed testing, as long as you do not end up with a cell bed.

"I've done this loads of times," said a fellow stooge, as 13 white, tall, thin, cropped-haired line-up artistes loitered in the entrance to Westlea Police Station.

"I take the money and run," added the man, who was in his late 20s to early 30s, with a medium build and pointed features.

Our crocodile of lanky look-alikes trudged to the station's badminton court-sized gym, and the wait was on.

We were each given a card with a letter on it and, confirming our names and addresses, and a £10 note.

After another wait the gym door opened and in walked a solicitor with his client who, joy of joys, was tall, dark and thin just like me.

A thousand alibis flashed through my mind even though I was there voluntarily.

After the solicitor weeded out four of the 13, the rest of us stood in a numbered line.

We were joined by the "suspect" who, with a grin, announced "I won't bite" and turned to face the music.

Like a row of Olympic swimmers moving to the edge of the pool, our line strode forward and stood right in front of a one-way mirror.

There we remained, standing tall, until the suspect in our midst was told to swap places and we carried on standing to attention.

With just over an hour gone, whoever had been looking at us had finished looking and it was all over.

Solicitor and suspect moved to a corner of the gym for a chat and the rest of us filed out of the room each handed an extra fiver because of the waiting around.

Our group re-traced its steps through the station sharing an unspoken contentment me trying to decide between spending the police loot on either a curry or a few pints.

"What was the allegation?" asked one of our party as a police officer showed us the door.

"I could tell you, but I'm not going to," replied the officer. "Thanks for your help, gentlemen."

Police put out regular appeals for help from the public with identity parades, often in local newspapers. Swindon police spokeswoman Alvina Kumar said: "Without the help of people out there it is impossible for us to run identification parades and therefore impossible for us to successfully carry out our investigations into crime."