История и современность полиции Чешира

English territorial police force

A constabulary was first formed in the county under the Cheshire Constabulary Act 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. 97) which was amended by the Cheshire Constabulary Act 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c. xxxi). The passage of the County and Borough Police Act in 1856 led to the dissolution of this force and the creation of a second constabulary. Many of the officers continued to serve in the new force and there were clauses in the Act which allowed their pension rights to continue. The first chief constable was Captain Thomas Johnnes Smith, late of the Bedfordshire Militia. The first full Cheshire Police Committee met at the Crewe Arms Hotel, Crewe, on 3 February 1857 and the new Cheshire Constabulary was officially formed on 20 April 1857. The first headquarters was established at 4 Seller Street, Chester. In 1862 this office was removed to 1 Egerton Street, Chester and remained there until 1870, when it was removed to 113 Foregate Street. In 1893, the Court of Quarter Sessions approved the building of a new Headquarters which was erected at 142 Foregate Street and designed by John Douglas, at a cost not exceeding £2,000. This continued to be used, together with the adjoining buildings, until 1967, when a new purpose built Headquarters was opened at Nuns Road, Chester. This building served the constabulary until 2004 when the Headquarters building moved to a purpose built complex at Clemonds Hey, Winsford. It was proposed by the Home Secretary on 6 February 2006, that Cheshire should merge with the Merseyside Police, to form a strategic police force, but these proposals were later abandoned. The Museum of Policing in Cheshire preserves and researches the heritage of policing in the county. In June 2022, The Cheshire Police announced that they will start using facial recognition technology in a bid to help identify offenders. The Technology will be used retrospectively to compare images such as CCTV against pictures held on the police national database.

The incumbent Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner is John Dwyer, appointed in May 2021. Dwyer previously held the post from November 2012 to May 2016. From May 2016 until May 2021, David Keane held the office. The police and crime commissioner is scrutinised by the Cheshire Police and Crime Panel, made up of elected councillors from the local authorities in the police area. Before November 2012, the Cheshire Police Authority was the police governance.

The Cheshire road system is made up of 3417 mile (5499 km) of highway. The constabulary is responsible for policing one of the longest stretches of motorway in Britain. The force patrols 214 mile (344 km) of the M6, M62, M53 and M56 motorways, which has 23 interchanges and four service areas. The M6 motorway across the Thelwall Viaduct carries 140,000 vehicles every 24 hours. Delays and incidents on the motorway can have a severe impact on the economic life of the entire North West Region.

The force no longer has an air operations unit. Since 2012 aviation support has been provided by the National Police Air Service. Historically, in December 2001, Cheshire Police began operating a Britten Norman Islander fixed wing aircraft. It was particularly suited to police aviation as it was able to carry a wide range of equipment and stay airborne for long periods of time. This equipment allowed it to operate during the day or night, in most weather conditions. On 27 February 2009, the Constabulary confirmed that the Home Office had agreed to jointly fund the purchase of a new £1million Eurocopter EC135 aircraft, to be operational 24 hours a day. The fixed wing aircraft was retired when the new helicopter came into operation. The aircraft was operated by a team of civilian pilots, four police observers and one sergeant ensure it was available all year. The aircraft was used to conduct a wide range of policing work providing emergency responses to incidents involving threat to life, commission of crime and searching for missing persons. It also conducted deployments for non crime searches, scene management at incidents and video evidence gathering. On 18 July 2011, the North West Air Operations Group was launched. It was a regional collaboration between five forces and police authorities. The service dispatched aircraft from a regional command desk to incidents across Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales. The five forces in the North had four helicopters, based at four different locations throughout the North West, providing a service anywhere in the region, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In February 2019, Cheshire Constabulary was found guilty of discrimination, having refused to give an applicant a job because he was a white heterosexual man. Despite the applicant, university graduate Matthew Furlong, being judged to have been "well prepared", he was nevertheless rejected for the job with the force falsely claiming that 127 of the other candidates had been equally suitable for the role, a claim an employment tribunal described as a "fallacy". The tribunal was told that Acting Chief Constable Janette McCormick believed "passionately about positive action" and it ruled that Furlong had been a victim of direct discrimination on the grounds of his sexual orientation, with the case believed to be the first in the UK of an organisation misusing positive action to discriminate illegally.