Let us pray we catch a criminal

Police in eastern England are looking to God to help them catch vandals and burglars.

The Lincolnshire branch of the Christian Police Association is setting up a "Prayer Watch" scheme to alert Christians to local crimes.

As well as encouraging worshippers to keep an eye out on their churches and each other, the police said the scheme would allow Christians to use prayer to help catch criminals.

"It's largely geared to protecting congregations and church properties which are pretty vulnerable places, but with the added bolt-on aspect of prayer," a Lincolnshire police spokesman told Reuters Wednesday.

Retired London policeman Don Axcell, the national executive director of the Christian Police Association, said God did answer crime-busting prayers.

"I'm a great believer in the power of prayer and all I'd say to the skeptics is that I've seen it work too many times for it to be a coincidence," he told the Lincolnshire Echo newspaper.