Cramphorn to take up new police post in West Yorkshire

The Police Service of Northern Ireland's deputy chief constable, Colin Cramphorn, is to leave his post to take up the role of chief constable of West Yorkshire police.

Mr Cramphorn, who has been deputy chief constable for four years, acted up as chief constable until the start of this month, when Hugh Orde took over.

Expected to take up his new post within the next few weeks, Mr Cramphorn had ruled himself out of the running for Northern Ireland's top police job in April saying he believed the Policing Board was looking for "a chief constable of a style and type that he could never be".

The 45-year-old caused controversy last month when he said the PSNI was being stretched to the limit by the continuing violence in different parts of Belfast. He told the Policing Board officers were "simply responding to emergency calls and little else" in many areas.

Mr Cramphorn began his police career with Surrey Constabulary in 1975. He worked on both uniform operations and CID and, following promotion to Sergeant, continued general policing duties before promotion to Inspector in 1981.

In 1987 he was seconded to the Home Office's Police Requirements Support Unit, as Chief Inspector where he co-wrote a strategy for policing research.

In 1989 he returned to Surrey as Deputy Sub-Divisional Commander for Mole Valley. He joined Greater Manchester Police as a Superintendent for the South Manchester area in 1990.

During the next five years Mr Cramphorn was involved in policing riots in the Salford area, piloting new communications systems, tackling organised crime in the area and developing the 'Safer Salford' project.

In 1995 he was appointed assistant chief constable with West Mercia Constabulary, where he was responsible for developing the force's IT systems. As ACC (Operations) he led investigations into animal rights activists, football violence and major crime inquiries.

He was then appointed deputy chief constable of the then Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1998, assisting with its changeover to the Police Services of Northern Ireland and the implementation of the Police Ombudsman system and Patten reform process.

(MB)