Humberside Police

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Humberside Police
Logo of the Humberside Police.
Agency Overview
Formed	1974
Preceding agencies	Hull City Police part of York and North East Yorkshire Police part of Lincolnshire Constabulary part of West Yorkshire Constabulary
Employees	4,032[1]
Volunteers	344[1]
Annual Budget	£164.9 million[1]
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional Structure
Operations jurisdiction*	Police area of Humberside in the country of England, UK
Map of Humberside Police's jurisdiction.
Size	3,517 km²
Population	1,140,200
Legal jurisdiction	England & Wales
Governing body	Humberside Police Authority
Constituting instrument	Police Act 1996
General nature	Law enforcement Local civilian police
Operational Structure
Headquarters	Kingston upon Hull
Constables	2,587 (of which 344 are special constables)[1]
Police Community Support Officers	318[1]
Agency executive	Tim Hollis QPM, Chief Constable
Divisions	4
Stations	31
Facilities
Helicopters	MD Helicopters MD Explorer 902
Website
http://www.humberside.police.uk
Footnotes
* Police area agency: Prescribed geographic area in the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

Humberside Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing an area covering the East Riding of Yorkshire, the city of Kingston upon Hull, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The Chief Constable is Tim Hollis QPM.

It was created in 1974 following a merger of previous forces under the Local Government Act 1972, along with the non-metropolitan county of Humberside. It was a successor to the Hull City Police, and part of the areas of the York and North East Yorkshire Police, the old Lincolnshire Constabulary and the West Yorkshire Constabulary.

Since the abolition of Humberside in 1996, the local authority members of the Police Authority are now appointed by a joint committee of the councils of the East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston upon Hull, North Lincolnshire, and North East Lincolnshire.

Proposals made by the Home Secretary on March 21, 2006 would have seen the force merge with North Yorkshire Police, South Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Police to form a strategic police force for the entire region.^[2] These proposals have since been 'put on hold' by the government.

Contents 1 Police vehicles 2 Performance 3 Controversy 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Police vehicles

Humberside uses a wide variety of vehicles, marked and unmarked. ProViDa is the standard in-car video unit used; the new 1997 Jai/ProViDa is also used too. The main vehicles used are:

Proton Cars - These are used for general patrol and by IRT (Incident Response Teams). The majority of the Protons are Impians but there are still some older Wira cars in use plus a few Gen2 models. Humberside Police won the top award in the National Energy Efficiency Awards by running the vast majority of its fleet on Liquified Petroleum Gas. Most Protons are dual fuel, running both LPG and unleaded petrol.

Volvo Cars - The Roads Policing (Traffic) Section use mainly Volvo cars. These are top of the range Volvo V70 T5 models. Many are fitted with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) systems. The newest Volvo cars in the fleet have been marked with new style Battenburg graphics in yellow and blue (as opposed to the familiar orange stripe with blue edges).

Mercedes Sprinter Vans - A batch of new Sprinter vans was purchased in 2006 to replace the previous generation of Sprinter Vans which were almost a decade old. These vans are used for Public Order and crowd situations as well as for transporting prisoners.

Subaru Impreza STi - The Roads Crime Section (RCS) has several Subaru Impreza vehicles. These are specially adapted models to enable Humberside Police's elite Roads Crime Section to pursue even the fastest vehicles.

Specialist Vehicles - The fleet also consists of many specialist vehicles which are used for specific purposes. These include an Underwater Search vehicle, a bullet-proof Land Rover Defender, a Leyland Prison Bus, plus marked Police recovery vehicles.

MD Helicopters MD Explorer 902 aircraft – An aerial support section operates a helicopter equipped with video and infra-red surveillance, and the late 20th century NOTAR technology to replace the tail rotor, making the aircraft more quiet than helicopters with tail rotors.^[3]

[edit] Performance

The force has performed poorly for a number of years and became known as the Blunderside Police Farce. This was confirmed in October 2006, when the Humberside Police was named, jointly (with Northamptonshire Police), as the worst performing police force in the country, based on data released from the Home Office ^[4][1]PDF (1.06 MiB) In 2007, its performance was considered to have improved, to 5th worst performing force in the country.^[5]

In April 2009 the force was cited as the poorest performing force for completing Criminal Record Bureaux (CRB) checks. The Home Office requirement is for 95% of requests to be completed within 14 days; Humberside Police managed to complete just 15%. As such checks are a condition of employment in numerous sectors the failure of the force to meet targets has caused delays for those waiting to commence employment in such areas^[6].

Graham Stuart, the Member of Parliament for Beverley and Holderness, said he was disgusted with the failure of Humberside Police to carry out criminal record bureau checks within a reasonable time. He went to say “The delay in processing them stops people taking up work and has a crippling impact on voluntary groups who have to get their volunteers approved. The Humberside Police are seriously lagging behind virtually every other constabulary in the country and local people are being let down.”^[7]

[edit] Controversy

The Police Authority shot to the national headlines in mid 2004 when it refused to sack Chief Constable David Westwood despite instructions from the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett.^[8] The Home Secretary eventually obtained a court order suspending Westwood.^[9] The Authority had come under pressure to sack Westwood due to the Soham Inquiry blaming in part failings in Humberside Police.

It returned to the headlines in 2005 when Colin Inglis, its chairman at the time of the crisis appeared in court charged with indecent assault.^[10][11] Mr Inglis was cleared of all allegations in July 2006.^[12]

[edit] See also

• Law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• List of law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom
• Table of police forces in the United Kingdom

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Humberside Police
• Humberside Police Authority
• The Home of Oscar 99 – Humberside Police Helicopter Support Unit

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