Surrey Police

Surrey Police
Logo of the Surrey Police.
Agency overview
Formed	1 January 1851
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction*	Police area of Surrey, UK
Map of Surrey Police's jurisdiction.
Size	1,663 km²
Population	1,067,200
General nature	Law enforcement Civilian agency
Operational structure
Headquarters	Mount Browne, Guildford
Sworn members	1,974
Police and Crime Commissioner responsible	Kevin Hurley
Agency executive	Lynne Owens, Chief Constable
Divisions	1
Facilities
Stations	24
Footnotes
* Police area agency: Prescribed geographic area in the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

Surrey Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Surrey in South East England.

The force is currently led by Chief Constable, Lynne Owens, Surrey's first female chief constable.^[1] The force has its headquarters at Mount Browne, Guildford, Surrey.

History[edit]

On 1 January 1851, the Surrey Constabulary began its policing of the county with a total of 70 officers, the youngest of whom was 14 years old. The first Chief Constable was H. C. Hastings, who served in this capacity for 48 years. Originally Guildford, Reigate and Godalming had separate borough police forces. The Reigate and Guildford forces were merged into Surrey's in 1943.

Today[edit]

Part of the present force area was originally part of the Metropolitan Police District, and was only transferred to the control of Surrey Police from the Metropolitan Police in 2000. This includes the boroughs of Epsom and Ewell, Spelthorne and part of Reigate and Banstead and Elmbridge. Surrey Police was divided into three divisions but since 2010 has become a single division, and as of the end of 2009 is policed by 1,840 regular police officers, in addition to 278 Special Constables and 211 Police Community Support Officers (see table below for more information). Surrey has one of the lowest crime rates in England and Wales.

For 2013/14 Surrey Police has total expenditure of £221.9m, of which £181.7m goes on employee costs, £27.2m on supplies and services, £8m on premises, and £5m on transport.^[2]

Surrey Police has three main command structures throughout the county.
Response Command (Targeted Patrol Team and other related response teams)
Investigation Command (CID and Prisoner Handling)
Neighbourhood Command (Safer Neighbourhood Team and Community Teams)

Notes:
1. All figures are official Home Office figures.
2. All figures are full-time equivalents apart from for special constables which are a headcount.
3. Figures apply to 31 March of that year, e.g., 2008/09 figures are for 31 March 2009.
4. Designated Officers that are not PCSOs have one of three roles: investigation officer, detention officer or escort officer.

Police and Crime Commissioner[edit]

The Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey Police is Kevin Hurley (independent, stood under the label Zero Tolerance Policing ex Chief), who is a retired Metropolitan Police Borough Commander. His appointment followed the first elections on 15 November 2012. The other candidates (by alphabetical order of surname) were:^[11][12] Robert Evans, Labour; Julie Iles, Conservative; Nick O'Shea, Liberal Democrat; Robert Shatwell, UKIP; Peter Williams, independent.

Air Operations Unit[edit]

Surrey, like most British Police Forces, has an Air Operations unit.^[13] Operational capability is based around a single helicopter, a Eurocopter EC 135 Advanced Police model, registration number G-SURY. This unit is used for both surveillance work as well as search operations: in 12 minutes, the helicopter can search an area that would otherwise take 450 man-hours. The force's air support unit is based at RAF Odiham, in Hampshire. The unit has operational agreements with air support units from neighbouring forces the Metropolitan Police and Sussex Police.

Surrey Police Museum[edit]

To help celebrate its 150th anniversary, a museum portraying the history of the Force was opened at Mount Browne, the Surrey Police's headquarters in Guildford. Surrey resident Sir Michael Caine, CBE, opened the museum on 22 October 2001. Displays include artefacts and touch-screen technology, all tracing the history of the Force up to the present day.

Training of New Recruits[edit]

Surrey Police now operates the PLC (police, law & community) course method of training and recruitment. This course ensures that potential recruits already possess knowledge of police law before applying to join Surrey Police. The course is run by several colleges in Surrey, as well as the University of Portsmouth. Although the PLC certificate can be obtained with a pass mark of 40% in the final examination, Surrey Police require a pass mark of 60% to become eligible to reach the application stage of the recruitment process.

The course allows the training phase of a police officer to be reduced by 15 weeks.

Complaints[edit]

There were 710 complaint cases for Surrey Police in 2009/10. This is a 206% change on the 2003/04 figure. This is the second highest increase (after Northamptonshire) of all 43 forces in England and Wales. For comparison, the average change across forces in England and Wales over the same period was 113%.^[14]

In 2012, an incident arose with a farm confronting poachers and being shot at with a .22 rifle. After phoning the police. It took the police an hour to arrive. Furthermore only two unarmed police turned up to deal with the incident. Surrey police claimed that they followed the correct protocol.^[15] Surrey said that the delay was due to the call being relayed to another force. They also claimed that the phone call said only one shot had been fired. Apparently this meant they did not have to make it such a high priority.^[15]

Proposed Merger with Sussex Police[edit]

Under controversial merger plans announced by then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, in 2006, the number of police forces in England and Wales would have been cut from 43 to 24. Proposals put forward on 20 March 2006 would have seen the Surrey force merged with Sussex Police to form a single strategic police force for the area.^[16]

Police authorities had until 7 April 2006 to respond to the plans; the Home Secretary then announced on 11 April 2006 that Surrey Police and Sussex Police would merge by 2008. However, on 12 July 2006, a Government minister announced that all proposed police merger plans in England and Wales were on hold.^[17]

Crime and detection rates[edit]

Surrey has the eighth lowest crime rate of the 43 force areas in England and Wales, with 59 crimes per 1,000 population. In the financial year 2010/11 there were 65,125 crimes recorded in Surrey, according to Home Office figures published in July 2011.^[18]

Despite this, the detection rate for offences was the joint lowest (with one other force) of the 43 forces in England and Wales, with a rate of 20 percent. The average for England and Wales was 28 percent.

Future of Surrey Police[edit]

In a report published by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in July 2011,^[20] the impact on the number of police officers and staff partly due to the reduction to Surrey Police's budget following the comprehensive spending review is as follows:

Stations, & Former Stations, with Borough Divisions[edit]

Notable cases[edit]

This section requires expansion with: more information and cases. (October 2011)

• Guildford Four and Maguire Seven
• Deaths at Deepcut army barracks
• Murder of Milly Dowler

Breakdown of officer numbers[edit]

Note: totals may not sum due to rounding.

Motor Vehicles[edit]

Surrey Police use many types of car for the diverse categories of response vehicles required by the modern Police officer. The force uses many different vehicles. Some of them are listed below with principal uses.

• Mercedes Sprinter - Prisoner Transport and Riot Control
• Ford Focus - Patrol/Response Car
• Seat Leon - Patrol/Response Car (1 vehicle in service)
• Ford S-Max - Collision Investigation Unit
• Ford Fiesta - Neighbourhood policing Car
• Ford Transit - Neighbourhood policing Van
• Ford Transit Connect - CSI Unit
• BMW 530d - Armed Response Car
• BMW X5 - Armed Response Car
• Škoda Octavia VRS -Unmarked Roads Policing Unit
• BMW 530d - Roads Policing Unit
• BMW X5 - Roads Policing Unit
• Honda Pan-European Motorcycle - Road Policing and Escort Unit
• Nissan Navara - Rural Policing Car
• Volvo XC70 - Area Car
• Skoda Octavia - Area Car
• BMW 330d - Area Car
• Land Rover Tangi - Public Disorder Unit
• Ford Transit - Search Unit
• Volvo V70 - Armed Response Car/Roads Policing Unit
• Audi Q7 - Armed Response Car/Roads Policing Unit
• Unmarked Audi Q7 - Armed Response Car/Roads Policing Unit
• VW Passat R36 - Armed Response Car/Roads Policing Unit

Road casualties in Surrey[edit]

As well as preventing and detecting crime, Surrey Police say that "dealing with road accidents forms a large part of our job, or at least taking measures to try and prevent them".^[23] The following table shows the number of casualties, grouped by severity, on Surrey's roads over the past three years.^[24]

Criticism by the IPCC[edit]

In criticism widely reported in the media,^{[25][26][27][28]} Deborah Glass, Deputy Chair of the IPCC, said in a six-page report^[29][30] regarding the hacking in 2002 of the phone of the murdered Milly Dowler:

"It is apparent from the evidence that there was knowledge of this at all levels within the investigation team.

"There is equally no doubt that Surrey Police did nothing to investigate it; nobody was arrested or charged in relation to the alleged interception of those messages either in 2002 or subsequently, until the Operation Weeting arrests in 2011.

"Phone hacking was a crime in 2002 and it should have been investigated. Our investigation has heard from officers and former officers at Surrey Police who have expressed surprise and dismay that this was not done. We have not been able to uncover any evidence, in documentation or witness statements, of why and by whom that decision was made: former senior officers in particular appear to have been afflicted by a form of collective amnesia about this. That is perhaps not surprising, given the events of 2011 and the public outcry that the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone produced."

She also said:

"In view of the widespread knowledge uncovered in this investigation, we consider that it is scarcely credible that no one connected to the Milly Dowler investigation recognised the relevance and importance of the knowledge that Surrey Police had in 2002, before this information was disclosed by Operation Weeting."

The conduct of two specific officers was referred to the IPCC: Detective Superintendent Maria Woodall, who was a detective sergeant at the time, was found by the investigation to have no case to answer for misconduct; and Deputy Chief Constable Craig Denholm, who was a Detective Chief Superintendent at the time, the investigation concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to support a finding of a case to answer for gross misconduct".

See also[edit]

• List of police forces in the United Kingdom
• Policing in the United Kingdom

Other Surrey Emergency Services[edit]

• Surrey Fire & Rescue Service
• South East Coast Ambulance Service
• SURSAR

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Surrey Police
• Office of the PCC (includes contact details)
• Video of meeting between PCC and Chief Constable, plus others (audio starts after 50 seconds)
• Video of second recorded meeting between PCC and Chief Constable, plus others
• Surrey Police Authority (archived site)

Video clips[edit]

• Surrey YouTube channel