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Police investigations could be hampered by budget cuts, according to South Yorkshire Police’s scientific support unit.

Funding cuts could mean “low-level” crimes would not be scientifically investigated despite the head of the department saying "legally and morally we are required to investigate all areas of crime".

Kevin Morton, director of scientific support services, said: "There would be some categories of crime we just wouldn't be able to investigate.

"At the moment we have a policy of investigating all crime scientifically, but there would be some categories we wouldn't be able to do that with.

"They are what we consider to be lower levels of crime.

"Obviously we would always investigate major crime, but when we are talking about criminal damage, theft of and from motor vehicles, these are crimes where we generally don't recover a lot of evidence."

The Comprehensive Spending Review is due to be revealed next week and forces up and down the country are bracing themselves for cuts of up to 25 per cent.

In recent months, concerns have been raised by forces and police authorities over fears ranging from officer redundancies to a cut-back in specialist departments, such as rape investigation.

This could mean that South Yorkshire Police’s scientific support unit might bear the brunt of a reduced budget.

Mr Morton added that he feared his unit could be seen as a backroom service – many of which are thought to be under threat - rather than part of the frontline that chief officers will try to protect.