Amanda Pearson has reflected on the last 12 months as the Chief Constable for Dorset Police.
She looks back at the challenges and achievements during 2024, and thanked every officer, member of staff and volunteer for their commitment in making Dorset a safe county for everyone, saying that Dorset is one of the safest counties in the country.
Amanda Pearson took over as Chief Constable for Dorset Police on 1 March 2023 and has been in policing since 1993 having worked across a number of forces, including Hampshire Constabulary, the City of London Police and Thames Valley Police.
She has lived in Dorset since 2011 with family.
The statement can be read in full below:
“As we approach the end of 2024, I wanted to reflect on the fantastic work and challenges our 3,075 officers, staff and volunteers in delivering a safer Dorset over the past 12 months.
Throughout the year, our Contact Management team has answered 133,500 calls to 999, 146,000 calls to our 101 service, as well as 51,000 online crime and intelligence reports.
To serve our communities, our officers and staff have driven our fleet of 457 vehicles over 3.6 million miles throughout the county to attend 58,700 incidents, making almost 9,100 arrests. Keeping those vehicles on the road, our vehicle technicians have carried out almost 3,000 repairs, replacing around 750 tyres and 1,500 litres of oil!
We have continued to protect vulnerable members of our community, finding 2,765 missing people and referring 32,400 adults and children to our Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hubs for police and partners, such as the local authority and healthcare teams, to support them.
We’ve also responded to 29,000 concerns for welfare and a further 8,900 incidents where a member of the public was experiencing a mental health crisis. Over the year we’ve been working with our partners, including local authorities, NHS trusts, and mental health agencies, to ensure those in mental health crisis receive the right care at their time of need from the most appropriate agency. This work continues and has reduced demand on our officers so they’re able to respond to core policing responsibilities, such as preventing and detecting crime.
As a police service, sadly we must also react to tragic events with professionalism, tenacity and compassion. We demonstrated this across a range of major incidents and investigations, such as the tragic death of Amie Gray on Bournemouth beach and the sad deaths of three residents at a care home in Swanage.
Alongside that, we continue to disrupt drug supply as part of Operation Scorpion and Operation Viper, by focusing on organised criminality and those who prey on our communities.
Meanwhile, our Roads Policing Team and family liaison officers have supported 279 people who have been seriously injured on our road network and the families of 17 people who sadly lost their lives. Our Road Safety Team detected over 69,500 offences where drivers were caught speeding or driving through red lights, with over half receiving an educational input on making better choices behind the wheel and the rest either receiving points and a fine or a trip to court. The highest speeding driver was clocked travelling at 120mph on the Bournemouth Spur Road, which was reckless and completely unacceptable.
It is not just the frontline colleagues that you see most who deserve recognition, but our enabling services teams too who are not often seen by members of the public but are vital in helping us to protect victims and bring offenders to justice. Meanwhile colleagues in finance, IT, administration, fleet, communications, people, business change and many others have been working hard to enable us to deliver policing in our communities.
However, policing couldn’t function nearly as well without the support of our 234 special constables and police support volunteers, who have contributed 32,521 hours throughout the year. In addition, our Community Speed Watch volunteers monitored the speeds of half a million vehicles, issuing warning letters to 12,099 motorists. A big thank you to all of our volunteers for finding the time to be part of our policing family and giving back to their communities.
This year has also been a time for scrutiny and reflection, and it is critical that we can identify those occasions when we don’t always get things right. That is why I made the decision to acknowledge institutional racism within our organisation and wrote to our Black communities. This was not a decision I took lightly, and it can be hard to accept that collectively we aren’t doing our very best to deliver fair and effective policing to everyone. This will not be an easy or quick fix, but we are fully committed to improving Black people’s experiences of policing by eliminating racial disparities and becoming an inclusive and anti-racist organisation and we all have a role to play. To explain how we intend to drive forward change, we have launched our refreshed Police Race Action Plan.
I joined policing to make a difference, and here we are not only motivated by that, but are achieving it in so many ways and across all parts of the organisation. We work collaboratively and don’t strive for individual glory or ego. I have seen our people come together in times of crisis and go the extra mile, working additional hours, supporting each other during trauma to keep themselves well and delivering exceptional policing for Dorset.
Dorset is a police force where people care and where the values of public service, integrity and professionalism run deep.
I would like to thank every officer, member of staff and volunteer for their commitment in making Dorset a safe county for everyone. We are one of the safest counties in the country, which is a testament to the hard work and determination of everyone to be tough on crime, keep people safe and put our victims and witnesses first.
Policing is more than a job, it’s a vocation and our people sometimes may not make that family celebration, may be quieter than usual around their family after a difficult shift or may not socialise with friends as regularly anymore. For all those times, and others too, I want to thank those who support them, offering your understanding and compassion.
I wish our people and our communities a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.”