Merseyside Police
Encyclopedia
Merseyside Police is the territorial police force
Territorial police force
The phrase Territorial Police Force varies in precise meaning according to the country to which it is related, generally distinguishing a force whose area of responsibility is defined by sub-national boundaries from others which deal with the entire country or a restricted range of...

 responsible for policing Merseyside
Merseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...

 in North West England
North West England
North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...

. The force area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million. As of March 2009 the force has 4,494 police officers, 2,221 staff, 442 police community support officers and 420 special constables.

Merseyside Police is divided into six Basic Command Units (BCUs), one in each of the metropolitan boroughs that make up Merseyside, and two BCUs for the City of Liverpool. The BCUs are:
  • Liverpool
    Liverpool
    Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

     North
  • Liverpool
    Liverpool
    Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

     South
  • Sefton
  • Wirral
    Metropolitan Borough of Wirral
    The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 311,200, and encompasses of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Heswall, Hoylake and West Kirby. The city of...

  • St Helens
    St Helens, Merseyside
    St Helens is a large town in Merseyside, England. It is the largest settlement and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens with a population of just over 100,000, part of an urban area with a total population of 176,843 at the time of the 2001 Census...

  • Knowsley
    Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley
    The Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England. It comprises the towns of Kirkby, Prescot, Huyton, Whiston, Halewood and Cronton; Kirkby, Huyton, and Prescot being the major commercial centres...



The force operates under the oversight of the Merseyside Police Authority
Police authority
A police authority in the United Kingdom, is a body charged with securing efficient and effective policing of a police area served by a territorial police force or the area and/or activity policed by a special police force...

, which is made up of nine local councillors, three magistrates and five independent members.

Under proposals made by the Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

 on 6 February 2006, it would merge with Cheshire Constabulary
Cheshire Constabulary
Cheshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the English unitary authorities of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Warrington. The force is responsible for policing an area of with a population of roughly 1 million.The Chief Constable of the...

 to form a strategic police force. The proposals were later abandoned.

History

The force came into being in 1974 when Merseyside was created, and is a successor to the Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary
Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary
Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary was a short-lived police force in England from April 1, 1967 to April 1, 1974. It was created as a merger of the Liverpool City Police and Bootle Borough Police, and covered the adjacent county boroughs of Liverpool and Bootle...

 (itself formed in 1967), along with parts of Cheshire Constabulary
Cheshire Constabulary
Cheshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the English unitary authorities of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Warrington. The force is responsible for policing an area of with a population of roughly 1 million.The Chief Constable of the...

 and Lancashire Constabulary
Lancashire Constabulary
Lancashire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Lancashire in the North West England. The force's headquarters are at Hutton, near the city of Preston...

.

Chief constables

  • 1974 - 1975 Sir James Haughton
  • 1976 - 1989 Sir Kenneth Oxford
    Kenneth Oxford
    Sir Kenneth Gordon Oxford CBE, QPM was a senior British police officer and chief constable of Merseyside Police from 1976 to 1989.-Early life:...

  • 1989 - 1998 Sir James Sharples
  • 1998 - 2004 Sir Norman Bettison
    Norman Bettison
    Sir Norman George Bettison, QPM is a British police officer and the current Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police.-Education:...

  • 2004 - 2009 Bernard Hogan-Howe
    Bernard Hogan-Howe
    Bernard Hogan-Howe, QPM is the present Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis . He was previously Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and more recently one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary.On 18 July 2011, the Home Secretary...

  • October 2009 - January 2010 Bernard Lawson (Acting Chief Constable)
  • February 2010 - Jonathan Murphy

Vehicles

Merseyside Police has a wide fleet of vehicles. Scientific Support vehicles were usually Peugeot Expert
Peugeot Expert
The Peugeot Expert is a van by the French carmaker Peugeot since 1995. It shares its body design with the Citroen Jumpy and the Fiat Scudo. The engines available throughout the model do differ. The first Expert was discontinued in 2004, for replacement with a facelift version...

 vans equipped with a high intensity roof mounted light which allows forensic examinations to be completed in all lighting conditions. In 2007 and 2010 some of these were replaced by Ford Transit Connects meaning the Peugeot Experts are rare nowadays. Roads policing unit (RPU) vehicles are generally Vauxhall Vectras, Volvo V70
Volvo V70
The Volvo V70 is a mid-size five-door estate car / station wagon manufactured by Volvo Cars since 2000. It is closely related to the S70, S60 and S80 saloons, as well as the four-wheel drive Cross Country and XC70....

 T5s, Volvo V70 S D5s, Land Rover Range Rovers, Ford Mondeo Estates, BMW 530ds, BMW 330ds and BMW X5s, the majority of which are mainly equipped with automatic number plate recognition
Automatic number plate recognition
Automatic number plate recognition is a mass surveillance method that uses optical character recognition on images to read the license plates on vehicles. They can use existing closed-circuit television or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task...

 (ANPR). Armed Response Vehicles (ARV) also use a wide range of vehicles, including Vauxhall Omega Estates, Vauxhall Vectra Estates, Volvo V50 Estates, Volvo V70 Estates, BMW X5s and Mercedes Vitos which are all equipped with ANPR.

The response/patrol cars for Merseyside Police are Vauxhall Astra
Vauxhall Astra
Astra is a model name which has been used by Vauxhall, the British subsidiary of General Motors , on their small family car ranges since 1979. Astras are technically essentially identical with similar vehicles offered by GM's German subsidiary Opel in most other European countries...

s and Ford Focuses. Many of these are also equipped with ANPR. Since 2009, the Ford Focus has rapidly overtaken the Astra in terms of numbers meaning the Astras are more rare nowadays and are being phased out.

The force also has yellow/orange liveried vans. These are mobile CCTV and patrolling vehicles and the Peugeot Expert van was generally the vehicle used, up until late 2008 where they started to be replaced by Ford Transit Connect vans. In addition, yellow Mercedes Sprinter vans are the main protected vehicles. These are used by a wide number of departments, including Matrix and the Anti-Social Behaviour task force. The Mercedes Sprinter can utilise an onboard ANPR system, a grille that drops down onto the front windscreen to help protect the officers from thrown missiles at public order incidents, fire suppression equipment within the engine bay, perspex windows, a loudspeaker facility and finally a mounted spotlight on top of the lightbar to light up scenes at night.

Off road vehicles used by the force include Land Rover Defenders, scrambler motorbikes and quad bikes
All-terrain vehicle
An all-terrain vehicle , also known as a quad, quad bike, three wheeler, or four wheeler, is defined by the American National Standards Institute as a vehicle that travels on low pressure tires, with a seat that is straddled by the operator, along with handlebars for steering control...

 to target anti-social behaviour in parks. Unmarked police vehicles include BMW 3 series; Ford Galaxy; Vauxhall Omega.

Departments

There are many different Departments that make up Merseyside Police. These include The Matrix disruption team and the Anti-Social Behaviour task force.

Matrix Disruption team

The Matrix Disruption Team led by a Chief Inspector, consists of syndicates made up of Inspectors, Sergeants and Constables. Each syndicate works with other Matrix units to provide the Force with a level two response to gun crime, faction based criminality and cash-in-transit robberies. They are the first response to any major large-scale disorder within the Merseyside force area. These officers are specifically trained to deal with a variety of disorder situations, ranging from small protests to large-scale crowd disorder.

Public Order is one of the main functions of the department and therefore all officers receive the required training and are subjected to rigorous training scenarios. Matrix has a number of Baton Gun trained specialist officers, consisting of two Sergeants and ten Constables.

The Matrix team also have specialist search teams and rope access teams. They use yellow Mercedes Sprinter police vans with special markings on the side to show they are Matrix. The team also uses a marked Vectra Estate but this does not have any Matrix markings on, just the usual Merseyside livery.

Anti-Social Behaviour Taskforce

The Anti-Social Behaviour Taskforce deals with people who are alleged to be creating anti-social behaviour. They also make raids for drugs and known offenders who are alleged to be lowering the standard of life for the community. They use yellow Mercedes Sprinter police vans(QV01, 02 & 03)with special markings on the side to show they are used by the ASB Taskforce. They have different numbers on, which include QV0 + another digit (Units range from QV01 - QV05 with QV90 as the mobile police station). There is also an ASB Taskforce Peugot Expert van (QV05) and a 2009 Ford Focus Estate (QV04).

The unit was initially known as Axis, but the use of this name was dropped around the end of 2007.

It was publicly announced on 9 July 2010 that as a result of budget reductions, this department would be closed and they did eventually disband in early 2011.

Mounted Section

Merseyside Police Mounted Section has a long history. It is the oldest Provincial Mounted section, formed in 1886 as part of Liverpool City Police. It is an integral part of the Operational Support Unit, and is based at Greenhill Road, Allerton
Allerton, Merseyside
Allerton is a suburb of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England. It is located southeast of Liverpool city centre, bordered by Mossley Hill, Woolton, Hunts Cross and Garston....

, Liverpool.

The mounted section is an operational specialist section with a staff of 1 Inspector, 2 Sergeants, 24 Constables, 11 Civilian Stable Hands and 26 Horses.

The section provides neighbourhoods with an alternative response to reduce the incidents of crime & disorder, using an intelligence-led approach, a tactical option in relation to public order & major incidents, as well as high visibility patrolling at football matches, rugby matches, race meetings and other special events.

Dog Section

Each area within the force has its own allocation of dogs and handlers who work alongside the neighbourhood patrol section.

There are currently 45 General purpose dogs in the force area, 16 of these have extended training for deployment alongside colleagues from the firearms department.

Merseyside Police, like most forces, rely on the German Shepherd Dog
German Shepherd Dog
The German Shepherd Dog , also known as an Alsatian or just the German Shepherd, is a breed of large-sized dog that originated in Germany. The German Shepherd is a relatively new breed of dog, with its origin dating to 1899. As part of the Herding Group, the German Shepherd is a working dog...

 for their general purpose police dog work. All general purpose work involves the dogs' outstanding sense of smell, several hundred times superior to that of a human. The dog handler takes advantage of the dogs' natural abilities to search for and detect human scent.

The force also utilises both Springer Spaniel
Springer Spaniel
Springer Spaniel refers to two different breeds of dogs, both of which are commonly called simply Springer Spaniel:*English Springer Spaniel*Welsh Springer Spaniel...

s and Labradors
Labrador Retriever
The Labrador Retriever is one of several kinds of retriever, a type of gun dog. A breed characteristic is webbed paws for swimming, useful for the breed's original purpose of retrieving fishing nets. The Labrador is the most popular breed of dog by registered ownership in Canada, the United...

 for their specialist detection roles; drugs, firearms, explosives and cadaver. These are the preferred breeds as they have extremely high energy levels and are able to search for long periods. The force currently operates 29 specialist dogs to carry out these detection roles.

The department uses vehicles including Ford Focus Estate, Vauxhall Astra Estate, Ford Transit and a Ford Mondeo Estate.

Air Support Group

Merseyside Police Air Support Group was set up in late 1989 in response to an increase in the number of high speed vehicle pursuits that were occurring after burglaries had been committed outside of the force area. The unit was disbanded in July 2011 amid budget cuts with the loss of its helicopter and Woodvale base.

The early days saw the unit based at Liverpool Airport
Liverpool John Lennon Airport
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is an international airport serving the city of Liverpool and the North West of England. Formerly known as Speke Airport, RAF Speke, and Liverpool Airport the airport is located within the City of Liverpool adjacent to the estuary of the River Mersey some southeast...

, but due to rising costs, the unit moved to RAF Woodvale
RAF Woodvale
RAF Woodvale is a Royal Air Force Station located south of Southport, Merseyside in a small town called Formby. Although constructed as an all-weather night fighter airfield for the defence of Liverpool, it did not open until 7 December 1941...

 and purpose built accommodation.

Merseyside now shares Air Support with Cheshire, Greater Manchester, North Wales and Lancashire as the North West Regional Air Support Group.

Helicopter

The Air Support Group operated a Eurocopter EC 135
Eurocopter EC 135
The Eurocopter EC135 is a twin-engine civil helicopter produced by Eurocopter, widely used amongst police and ambulance services and for executive transport. It is capable of flight under instrument flight rules .-Development:...

 helicopter, which was based at RAF Woodvale
RAF Woodvale
RAF Woodvale is a Royal Air Force Station located south of Southport, Merseyside in a small town called Formby. Although constructed as an all-weather night fighter airfield for the defence of Liverpool, it did not open until 7 December 1941...

 near Formby
Formby
Formby is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It has a population of approximately 25,000....

. It was new in 2002 replacing a Eurocopter Ecureuil 2
Eurocopter AS355
The Eurocopter AS355 Ecureuil 2 is a twin-engine light helicopter originally manufactured by Aérospatiale...

. Like its predecessor it is known as Mike One, after the middle two characters of its call sign, XM11. It was also allocated a "matching" aircraft registration
Aircraft registration
An aircraft registration is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies a civil aircraft, in similar fashion to a licence plate on an automobile...

, G-XMII.

Officers killed in the line of duty

The Police Memorial Trust
Police Memorial Trust
The Police Memorial Trust is a charitable organisation founded in 1984 and based in London. The trust's objective is to erect memorials to British police officers killed in the line of duty, at or near the spot where they died, thereby acting as a permanent reminder to the public of the sacrifice...

 lists and commemorates all British police officers killed in the line of duty, and since its establishment in 1984 has erected over 38 memorials to some of those officers.

The following officers of Merseyside Police are listed by the Trust as having died attempting to prevent, stop or solve a crime, since the turn of the 20th century:
  • PC Samuel Ballance, 1911 (died after operations to treat injuries sustained in earlier riot)
  • Sgt George Anderson, 1913 (died from injuries sustained when attacked by hostile crowd)
  • PC Thomas Ashcroft Grundy, 1914 (collapsed and died after an arrest)
  • PC PC Adam Mather, 1915 (collapsed and died after the violent arrest of two suspects)
  • PC Richard Haig Little, 1933 (committed suicide after suffering head injuries in an assault)
  • PC Benjamin Drinkwater, 1935 (while searching for suspects, died when a roof collapsed)
  • War Reserve PC Joseph Pickering, 1942 (fatally injured during an arrest)
  • PC Ronald Brown, 1962 (fell through roof while searching for suspected burglar)
  • PC Raymond Davenport, 1981 (fatally injured when dragged by a stolen car while attempting to arrest the driver; posthumously awarded the Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct)

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
    Table of police forces in the United Kingdom
    This table of police forces in the United Kingdom includes territorial police forces and special police forces. It does not include non-police law enforcement agencies or bodies of constables not constituted as police forces.-Table:-England and Wales:...

  • Mersey Tunnels Police
    Mersey Tunnels Police
    The Mersey Tunnels Police is a small, non-Home Office police force which polices the Mersey Tunnels in Merseyside, England on behalf of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority.-Role and powers:...

  • Port of Liverpool Police
    Port of Liverpool Police
    The Port of Liverpool Police is a small police force with the responsibility of policing the Liverpool, Bootle, Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port and Eastham Dock Estates and Freeports, as well as the Manchester Ship Canal areas in the north- west of England....


External links

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