A detective who caught some of Britain’s worst rapists and murderers has joined Nigel Farage’s mission to clean up “lawless Britain”, Reform UK has announced.

Colin Sutton will be the Party’s Police and Crime adviser, it announced in a social media post on Monday. He led the hunt for serial killer Levi Bellfield and “night stalker” rapist Delroy Grant.

He will be in charge of overseeing Reform’s pledge to halve crime in five years by hiring 30,000 extra police and investigating every reported offence.

More details will be unveiled at a press conference later on Monday morning.

Mr Farage said: “Colin Sutton will be a huge asset to Reform UK.”

In an interview with the Mail, Mr Sutton – who was played by Martin Clunes in the TV drama Manhunt, about the investigations into Bellfield and Grant – said he would give all frontline officers Tasers, reopen 300 mothballed police stations and stop police investigating online spats.

Mr Sutton, 64, said: “Absolute respect to the young men and women who serve their communities and do the job, but do they actually do it because they want to be policing Twitter, or because they want to catch burglars and rapists and robbers?”

He said “a police station with a blue lamp” would be a reassuring sight for people walking in boarded-up town centres at night.

In the interview, he added that he could consider scrapping some of the laws against online abuse, adding: “I don’t mean hate or incitement, but people who are abused, let’s make it like a watered-down version of defamation, then you can sue in the civil court.

“Don’t give them legal aid and see how many feelings are hurt then.

“I accept that persistent and horrible abuse on social media can be very distressing and cause real problems psychologically.

“There’s got to be better ways of dealing with it than sending half a dozen officers round.”