Kent Police, the first force in the UK to use computer algorithms to predict crime, has ended the programme after five years.

The Financial Times has reported that the project, which conjures images of the 2002 sci-fi thriller Minority Report, where officers can look into the future to stop murderers before they commit their crimes, was dropped in March this year.

The actual system, a far cry from Washington DC's Precrime unit featured in the Hollywood blockbuster, is actually an advanced system using crime and incident data along with an algorithm devised by academics in America, to predict where crimes are most likely to take place.

Superintendent John Phillips said: “The launch of a new policing model that places victims and witnesses at its centre, has led Kent Police to evaluate alternative options which will support a focus on both traditional and emerging crime types.

"Therefore Kent Police has not renewed its contract with the current provider of Predictive Policing.”

The force says there was ongoing analysis and a review of the £100,000 a year system's cost and overall effectiveness informed the project's demise.

The computer-aided programme was introduced to Kent Police in December 2012 and resulted in a 6% reduction in street violence during a four-month trial in the north Kent division.

It was then rolled out across the county in 2013.

One incident that convinced officers was in Medway, when the sergeant asked his PCs to drive to areas suggested by the algorithm, even if it went against their local knowledge as a crime hotspot.

That night they found a mother and her child in the street who had both been sexually assaulted and later arrested a suspect nearby.

Kent Police have been approached for comment.