GWENT’S chief constable Mark Hobrough has paid tribute to the force’s “outstanding” officers who’ve dealt with “harrowing scenes”.
He highlighted an incident where a nine-month-old baby was killed in a dog attack in Rogiet, in November last year when he addressed councillors in Monmouthshire.
The chief constable outlined demand on the force due to an “unprecedented” 11 murder investigations in 10 months and said the force is considering using casual style contracts to support major investigations.
He said it could use detectives on “zero hours style contracts” as a response if it again sees similar levels of demand on its major crime teams and CID next year.
It has had to fund unprecedented amounts of overtime and Mr Hobrough said as well as ensuring the force is able to meet its regular policing demands he has to avoid overburdening officers.
He said: “They are the same people going to these incidents and there is a lot to do in wellbeing of officers attending these incidents. They are young officers doing an outstanding job and I want to make sure we are looking after them and they stay with us long term.
“Some of our neighbourhood officers within Monmouthshire have been to some horrendous incidents in the last 12 months. Everyone will know about the dreadful dog attack on the baby. That’s a horrendous incident, an absolute tragedy. Our neighbourhood officers were the first on the scene, it’s left trauma it is bound to.
“They’ve been to the two murder scenes (in Monmouthshire) which were particularly harrowing incidents. It’s about making sure we look after the teams, to support them and keep them in service and healthy and leave healthy.”
Councillors had questioned the chief constable over the number of officers dedicated to Monmouthshire.
Mr Hobrough said the force has 1,535 officers but only those in neighbourhood policing teams are allocated to specific areas with response officers and CID detectives a force resource deployed as and where demand dictates.
The chief constable said the force had shifted from its previous geographic operating model to one based on police functions and said: “The operating model is very different to what it was two and a half years ago and will not go back to that while I’m chief constable.”
The neighbourhood teams include 135 Police Community Support Officers, or PCSOs, which he described as one for each ward in Gwent.
In Monmouthshire the force has a dedicated inspector for the county, two sergeants and 11 “ward managers” who are police constables responsible for 17 PCSOs.
Mr Hobrough said a ward manager vacancy in Usk has recently been filled while it is looking at how to fill the same vacancy in Caldicot while two vacancies among the PCSOs are being filled by recruits currently in training.
A new inspector, Alex Kear, is taking over from Emma Sowrey, who has recently retired and Jordan Neal has been appointed as sergeant for the south of the county.
Mr Hobrough praised both officers and said they will also be supporting staff welfare.
He said: “You have had some staff who’ve been on the sick as a result of attending traumatic incidents, none of those of posts I mentioned earlier are now on the sick, they are now in post and being looked after.”
