CRIMINALS and informants have pocketed more than £700,000 of taxpayers’ money to supply Thames Valley Police with information over the past five years, we can reveal.

The force has defended spending £718,496 on informants since 2005 by saying paid informers were vital to tackling serious organised crime and the drugs trade.

Figures released to us following a Freedom of Information request show the amount paid out to informants by Thames Valley Police had increased every year since £84,697 was paid out in 2004/05.

Over the past 12 months £179,516 was paid out.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance has branded the practice “unethical”.

And it demanded evidence from police to prove spending public money on information from criminal sources solved crime.

Thames Valley Police Assistant Chief Constable Nick Gargan said paid informants had helped disrupt 43 organised crime groups in the past year, but could not provide any examples of success because of the need to protect informants’ identities.

Mr Gargan added: “As a proportion of Thames Valley Police annual spend, I think it is low.

“The reason for that is the vast majority of help we get from informants isn’t actually for money.

“We get a lot of people registered as covert human intelligent sources and there are several motivations for people to help — and money is just one of them.

“It may be an obvious statement, but police need to understand what criminals are up to and need to talk to criminals and talk to the people who talk to criminals.

“We also need to find a way of motivating people to talk to us, and money helps.

“There are some criminality areas such as serious and organised crime, the drugs trade, as well as some acquisitive crime where it is one of the most useful things that we have.

“We’d really find it difficult to do what we do if it wasn’t for the presence of covert human intelligence sources.”

The figures show an increase from £84,697 paid in 2004/05 to £147,530 in 2005/06, £157,393 in 2006/07, £149,360 in 2007/08 and £179,516 in the past 12 months.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Police forces have spent a huge amount of taxpayers’ money on informers.

“If the police need to spend this money to solve crime, they should be willing to defend that policy in public and need to be able to demonstrate this method leads to direct reductions in violent crime.

“There are obvious ethical concerns about giving money to criminals and there needs to be openness and scrutiny to make sure it’s justified.”