Surrey Police

History

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

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 in 2010 became a single division, and as of March 2014 is policed by 1,938 regular police officers, in addition to 182 Special Constables and 153 Police Community Support Officers (see table below for more information). Surrey has one of the lowest crime rates in England and Wales. It has now reverted to three area divisions.

For 2016/17, Surrey Police has total expenditure of £212.6m, of which £182.2m goes on employee costs, £27.8m on supplies and services, £7.9m on premises, and £5.7m on transport. It also has £11m of income.

The Chief Constable of Surrey Police is Nick Ephgrave, who was appointed in July 2016. He had been temporary Chief Constable since December 2015 and was previously Deputy Chief Constable, having been in that role since July 2013. Before this he was a commander in the Metropolitan Police. The previous Chief Constable of Surrey Police was Lynne Owens, who left to become the head of the National Crime Agency.

Surrey Police has four main divisions: three area divisions, Northern, Eastern, and Western; and a specialist crime division.

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

The first election for Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner took place on 15 November 2012. Kevin Hurley (independent, stood under the label Zero Tolerance Policing ex Chief), who was a retired Metropolitan Police Borough Commander, was elected. He defeated candidates from Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, plus an independent.

The second election took place on 5 May 2016. The Conservative candidate, David Munro, was elected. He defeated Jamie Goldrick, independent; Kevin Hurley; Camille Juliff, independent; Howard Kaye, Labour; Paul Kennedy, Liberal Democrat; and Julia Searle, UKIP.

Ranks and pay

Surrey Police has the following ranks. Every rank from constable to chief superintendent has a detective equivalent. These confer no additional powers or authority from their uniform equivalents.

Pay ranges from £24,443 (including a £2,000 South East Regional Allowance) for a new constable, to £140,217 for the chief constable.

Air Operations Unit

Surrey, like most British Police Forces, has Air Operations covered by the National Police Air Service. The helicopter callsign NPAS15 which predominately covers the Surrey Policing area is based at Redhill Aerodrome and also covers the Sussex, West Hampshire and Essex Area.

Surrey Police Museum

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

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

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%.

In 2012, an incident arose with a farmer confronting poachers and being shot at with a .22 rifle. After phoning the police, it took an hour for them to arrive. Furthermore, only two unarmed police turned up to deal with the incident. Surrey Police claimed that they followed the correct protocol. 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.

Proposed merger with Sussex Police

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.

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.

Crime and detection rates

Surrey has the joint seventh lowest crime rate (with one other force) of the 43 force areas in England and Wales, with 55 crimes per 1,000 population. In the year to the end of March 2012 there were 61,757 crimes recorded in Surrey, according to Office for National Statistics figures published in July 2012. This is a 5.2% drop on 2010/11 when there were 65,125 crimes recorded in Surrey.

Despite having the joint seventh lowest crime rate, the detection rate for offences was the joint second 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 27 percent.

Future of Surrey Police

In a report published by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in July 2011, 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:

Notable cases

Motor vehicles

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.

Road casualties in Surrey

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". The following table shows the number of casualties, grouped by severity, on Surrey's roads over recent years.

Criticism by the IPCC

In criticism widely reported in the media, Deborah Glass, Deputy Chair of the IPCC, said in a six-page report 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".