Earlier this week I was really struck by an article published by the British paper The Telegraph describing the transformation that had happened in the Greater Manchester Police force thanks to the arrival of a no-nonsense Chief Constable named Stephen Watson.
When he arrived in the summer of 2021, GMP had been placed in “special measures” after failing to record 80,000 crimes – a fifth of that year’s total. Emergency 999 response times were the worst in the country, with serial warnings that it was failing domestic abuse and sexual assault victims.
Now, says Watson, every crime is investigated, emergency response times are among the best in England and Wales, arrests of domestic abuse perpetrators have doubled in a year and overall crime is down by 7.7 per cent. Since he took over, stop and searches have quadrupled to 46,029 in a year, a key reason, he believes, behind…
