Ex-Humberside Police Chief joins race to be first crime tsar

Former Humberside Police Chief Supt Paul Davison, 59, announced yesterday he was entering the race with a pledge to overhaul crime-fighting in the region by investigating every single crime.

The former officer claimed about 40 per cent of crimes are not investigated because they are “screened out”, and said: “To build trust lots of things have got to happen – reducing crime, investigating crime and providing a great service that’s responsive.

“When I was head of C Division (divisional commander for the East Riding) I started with a blank piece of paper and said ‘we’ll investigate every single crime’.

“My inspectors said ‘You can’t do that’ but I told my PCSOs to go and investigate and we ended up with crime reduction rates that were 10 times higher than anywhere else.”

He added: “Policing is a contact sport; to have a chance of catching the criminal you’ve got to go to the scene and speak to the victim.”

Mr Davison also said he would rule out privatising aspects of the service – a move already under way in other forces as they seek to manage savage budget cuts – and would scour the country for a candidate who shares his vision to make Humberside the best-performing force in the country when current Chief Constable Tim Hollis steps down.

But Mr Davison, who retired from a 30-year career on July 25, said it was wrong to judge the success of a force on statistics alone – an accusation he levelled at Ministers.

“This government has got it wrong because it’s all about cutting crime,” he said. “What I want to do is go the extra mile and there’s an altruistic key to the vision based on everyone doing the right thing all of the time. You’ve got to have the moral compass to do the right thing.

“Policing is complex but at the end of the day what I’m saying is if I get elected I’m going to provide the focus for all our policing partners to put the public first.”

Mr Davison, who was born in Anson Road on Hull’s Bilton Grange estate, also said he would be directly contactable by 
telephone.

And whatever the outcome of November’s election, he said he hoped residents would take the trouble to vote amid fears of a low turnout.

He said: “My view is listen to what we’ve got to say before you make your mind up because this is too important to get wrong. This is the biggest shake-up (of police governance) for 200 years.

“If you get the right candidate it will work.”

Nine years ago Mr Davison brought the killer of Rachel Moran to justice after deploying a search tactic that is now used by forces across the country.

A month after the 21-year-old had gone missing in Hull in the early hours of January 1, 2003, he ordered 100 officers out on to the streets to conduct consent-based house searches within 1.5 sq miles of where she was last seen.

On the first day of the operation Rachel’s body was found in a cupboard outside the flat of her murderer, Michael Little.

Little had abducted Rachel off the street before killing her in a frenzied knife attack.

Mr Davison will be standing as an independent alongside a growing list of prospective candidates that already includes former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott, UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Godfrey Bloom and Conservative East Riding councillor Matthew Grove.

The Liberal Democrats are expected to announce a candidate for Humberside commissioner early next month.