More than £840,000 has been spent on interpretation and translation services on behalf of non-English- speaking crime suspects, witnesses and victims, Suffolk police have revealed.

A total of £843,903 has been spent on interpreters and translation over the last four years, using telephone and face-to-face meetings.

Police bosses say that the services are essential to ensure justice for victims of crime and fair treatment of suspects.

Figures, which were released under the Freedom of Information Act, state that the highest spend on interpreters was in 2009/10 when £263,055 was paid out, against a budget of £227,117 – although spending has dropped year on year.

Spending on telephone translation services has increased, hitting £26,711 last year – exceeding the police budget by about £6,000.

All of Suffolk police's language services have been provided by the INTRAN Partnership since December 2009.

The figures show between 2009 and 2012-13, 1,400 hours were provided by telephone interpreters and 10,705 hours were spent in face-to-face interpreting sessions.

The most common language that was interpreted and translated was Polish, followed by Lithuanian and Russian.