Retiring Isle of Man chief constable proud of transformation

The outgoing chief constable of the Isle of Man Constabulary has said driving a cultural change was the most important achievement in his career.

Gary Roberts retired on Friday after nearly 39 year of service, including a decade in the top job.

He said he was proud of being part of a team that transformed the constabulary into a service for the community.

It followed a period of turmoil in Manx policing when "the force was on its knees", he said.

During that time, at the turn of the century, officers from Cheshire were on the island for several months.

"The constabulary was in a real mess, it was in an awful state," Mr Roberts said.

"There was a series of high profile investigations into allegations of corruption, into practices that were clearly not sound."

'Promoted on values'

Mr Roberts said he was "allowed to play a part in lifting it up again" by changing it "so that what was important in policing was the values that individuals had".

"We decided as a group of people the values that we ought to have as police officers or people who work in the constabulary," he said.

"We recruited on values, we promoted on values, we selected people for specialist posts on values, that's when we transformed the police."

It then became "a place where people cared about what they did", he added.

But he said while recent events in some UK police forces, particularly the Metropolitan Police, had "damaged policing for a generation" and in "many places people just don't trust the police", the island was different.

"Here people do trust the police, and that's because we are part of the community, we've a vested interest in this place being as safe as it can be," he said.