The Fourth CC

On 1st October 2007, the fourth Chief Constable to head Sussex Police since I moved to East Sussex took up his post. To start with a clean sheet, I will ignore records prior to this date.

On 1st October, the local BBC midday news featured a short interview with the Chief Constable. As remarks by the announcer and interviewer cannot be verified, I will quote here only audible words spoken by Mr Richards himself. There were two sentences:

"What I'll be looking for in terms of my staff is that we carry out our public service duties with with a sense of style but with a true sense of values."

What Mr Richards means by "true sense of values" is not specified. One hopes that in future the performance of the force will have more in common with the code of professional standards than it has had during the tenure of the previous three chief constables.

"I expect my staff to use their judgement and their discretion, whatever they come across, whether that's a family tragedy, a domestic dispute, whether it's a road traffic collision, or or whether it's issues around around the drug scene."

As I have had cause to complain on many occasions of the Sussex Police's use of "their judgement and discretion" and the concomitant lack of proper supervision and direction by senior staff, I did not find Mr Richards' expectation encouraging.

The Sussex Police website carried a newsflash also dated 1st October 2007. After announcing the arrival of Mr Richards, the message starts:

"In a Forcewide message to the 5,000 officers and staff under his new command, he calls for them to show 'humility' in their dealings with the public."

"Humility" is not a quality required in the suggested code of professional standards for the police, which features other more apposite words and phrases which one would have found preferable.

The rest of the newsflash features a few signs of the puffing which distinguished the approach of Mr Richards' predecessor: one will wait and see whether there is more substance than spin to the new regime.

To be continued