Crime tsar to appoint deputy against advice

DEVON and Cornwall’s police and crime commissioner is to appoint a deputy, despite a panel which scrutinises her work telling her they don’t recommend it, suggesting the money should be spent on frontline officers instead.

- CARL EVE and ALISON STEPHENSON

Crime commissioner Alison Hernandez has said she wants former mental health worker Mark Kingscote as her deputy, a man she earmarked for the role in 2017 but never recruited.

Mr Kingscote is also a former Conservative councillor in the same Torbay ward as Ms Hernandez.

She has said on her Crime Commissioner website that Mr Kingscote was ‘an experienced politician with extensive experience in local government, has had a successful career with the NHS and in the community and voluntary sector. He has been a champion of young people through the Prince’s Trust.’

Speaking at the Police Crime Panel on Friday at Plymouth’s civic centre, she said the force faced challenges in its performance and on the streets and she did not have the time to tackle both. She repeated her public statement on Mr Kingscote, telling members of the panel he had a ‘unique set of skills’, including working with people with complex mental health needs over a 30-year career in the NHS, to focus on the problems on the ground while she helped the leadership of an organisation which she confesses is “in dire straits”.

It follows a report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) which rated the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary as requiring improvement and inadequate in half of the areas it examined.