Almost £2 million has been spent helping police officers communicate with crime victims, witnesses and offenders via translators over the last year, according to the Sheffield Star.

Detectives, officers and police staff at South Yorkshire Police have had to deal with people who speak 45 languages other than English since 2005

These languages include Albanian, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Somali and Vietnamese.

Sign language specialists have also been used by officers, to help them speak with people who have impaired hearing.

Interpreters are paid by the force on an hourly basis to take witness statements and to help in face-to-face interviews.

A specialist telephone service is also subscribed to.

South Yorkshire criminal justice department’s Superintendent Nick Whitehouse said the £2 million costs reflect how diverse South Yorkshire is.

“Over the last few years we have seen an influx from various parts of Europe to complement the diverse multicultural place we already had,” he said.

“The number of languages we have to make and interpretation arrangements for has increased because of the need for fairness in investigative procedures and in gathering police evidence.”