Watch as Blue Lights creator Declan Lawn goes behind the scenes with PSNI to prepare for series

The creator of Northern Irish police drama Blue Lights has shared what he learnt while being out and about with the PSNI response team in preparing for the series.

Former journalists Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson are the duo behind the gritty show which follows the life of PSNI officers working and living in Belfast.

To prepare for writing the first and second series of the show, both the creators and actors were able to join real PSNI officers to grasp a greater understanding of what the job entails.

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The PSNI has shared a video of Declan going behind the scenes to mark Response Policing Week as he spent time with officers to gather insights that influenced the show.

In the short clip, he discusses his surprise at the complexity and variety of challenges that Response Officers experience on a daily basis.

Watch the full video below...

Declan said: "Meeting real response officers and, now and again, seeing them actually do the job and being with them has completely changed my opinion of what this job is.

"I had a very vague sense of what it might be before but there's just no substitute for being here and experiencing this.

"I think there are so many aspects to the job that I've been surprised by, you know, the amount of day-to-day violence they deal with the mental health epidemic that they're on the front line of all of these things have changed my opinion of what these people do.

"And all of it goes into Blue Lights."

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