POLICE are calling on people to be good neighbours and act if they hear domestic abuse.

Officers expect a spike in the number of incidents during the summer holiday.

Wiltshire Police put out a video online asking people to report any signs of domestic abuse from their neighbours.

Det Insp Simon Childe told the Adver: “This has been posted to encourage people to report their concerns to police about their neighbours, or in fact, anyone they know may be suffering at the hands of an abusive partner. It is likely that during the warmer weather, people will be out and about in their gardens more and may hear arguments etc from their neighbours.

"We appreciate that many people will feel uncomfortable about reporting this kind of information to police, especially about people living so close to them, but we hope this video encourages people to think of the consequences of choosing to ignore screaming and shouting.”

The video is part of the force's Summer Demand campaign, which is running primarily on social media and aims to reduce the demand of policing teams during the summer time.

It helps to direct people to relevant agencies and to inform people of when they should and shouldn’t contact the police.

Emma Pearmaine is the chair of the board of trustees for the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence and is the go-to expert on domestic violence issues.

She said: “We know that incidents of domestic abuse and violence go up over holiday periods, so I am urging those who already feel threatened to find a way of making a record of any and all incidents of abuse over the summer.”

“There are currently several apps available for victims of domestic violence that help with everything from simple note-keeping to storing searchable records such as documents, pictures and videos.

"Many apps are disguised as something else, so that an abuser would not identify it on a victim’s phone screen, if they decided to check.”

Wiltshire Police have had 6,511 reports of domestic abuse made in Swindon and in Wiltshire in the past year to June.

That is a 17 per cent increase from the previous year in Wiltshire with an additional 687 crimes.

Swindon has seen a four per cent increase, with 93 additional crimes.

Of the crimes within the past year in Wiltshire there were 3,991 incidents (61 per cent) and in Swindon there were 2,520 (39 per cent).