Police in Dundee are the first in Scotland to be armed with teddy bears.

The hand knitted cuddly toys will be given to children who are the victims of crime, have been involved in a road accident or have witnessed a distressing incident.

The trauma teddies, which first started in Australia, will feature a telephone number for the charity Children 1st who can provide support for families.

Police Scotland have put out an appeal to Tayside locals to grab their knitting needles and help towards their cause.

The trauma teddy knitting pattern has been posted on Tayside Police Division's Facebook page for those that want to get involved.

Inspector Chris Boath said: "The appeal is to the knitters in Tayside initially, to get those knitting needles out and knit as many as possible.

"Ultimately we'd like to put some teddies into every police car into Dundee, and perhaps into the road policing unit vehicles and CID vehicles.

"Often police come into contact with children who are perhaps a victim of a crime or have witnessed something fairly traumatic, and there's an opportunity there for police to engage with the child and build rapport."

Linda Jardine from Children 1st said the bears may also be helpful to parents as well as children.

"It's also an important message to parents that there's somewhere they can go, because they often don't know where to go to support their children who've witnessed or been involved in those types of incidents."