Dorset’s new Chief Constable has promised that she will not be ripping up existing policing plans and starting again.<\/p>\n
Amanda Pearson, who has lived in the Ferndown area for the past 12 years, has been confirmed by the county\u2019s police and crime panel for the top Dorset Police job, switching from being temporary assistant commissioner with the metropolitan police.<\/p>\n
She has worked, over 29 years, in a number of forces, including tiny St Helena island, and is the chief constables national lead for \u2018stop and search\u2019 operations \u2013 an area where Dorset\u2019s figures have in the past been recognised as in need of improvement, disproportionately stopping a high percentage of people from non-white backgrounds.<\/p>\n
She told the county\u2019s police and crime panel at a meeting in Dorchester that she wanted to see no area in Dorset where people felt unsafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of hard work and passion has gone into developing a police and crime plan\u2026there is momentum across the force, there are good plans in place and good people in place committed to to delivering them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to assure you I am not going to turn everything upside down and start again. It\u2019s the last thing the staff and the people of Dorset need. We\u2019re not in a crisis, we\u2019re in a good place with solid foundations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Pearson said that she had wanted to be a police officer since the age of 14 and still felt a passion to serve and improve things for local communities, describing the move of her husband and two boys to Dorset as one of the best decisions she had made.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been my ambition to be Chief of my home patch and I\u2019m delighted by the prospect of doing so\u2026I\u2019m personally invested in the people of Dorset having the very best Chief Constable they can.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that in her early weeks she would visit as many staff, civilian officers and volunteers as she could to get a feel about how they saw the force developing and offering the chance to make suggestions about any improvements which might be needed and to help them \u2018thrive and develop.\u2019<\/p>\n
She said there should already be pride in the fact that Dorset was the 6th lowest crime rate area in the country but said she would not be complacent about that standing and would seek to strengthen the impact of the police in local communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important that people also feel safe \u2026. It\u2019s our responsibly, we can\u2019t leave areas across the county where people feel unsafe,\u201d she said, \u201cI am invested in getting Dorset the very best policing it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n
She will replace Scott Chilton in the role as he moves to Hampshire to take up the Chief Constable\u2019s role there.<\/p>\n
Tributes were paid to Mr Chilton for his work in Dorset by both panel members and the police and crime commissioner, David Sidwick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ferndown resident Amanda Pearson has been appointed Dorset’s new Chief Constable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3772,"featured_media":47449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,103],"tags":[53],"class_list":["post-47447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dorset","category-ferndown","tag-dorset-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47450,"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47447\/revisions\/47450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martin.mx\/verwood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}