Speaker Meeting

“JO SHINES AT  OUR MEETING”

Jo Shiner, Chief Constable of Sussex was the guest speaker at this meeting and gave an account of all the challenges she and her Force face in today’s changing world.

Her police career started in Norfolk back in 1993 when she was pounding the beat for the first two years but rising through the ranks to become Chief Superintendent.  She has had a varied career both in uniform and plain clothes within the Child and Adult Protection Unit as well as serving with the CID, and being responsible all road policing in the UK.  In 2014 she transferred on promotion to Kent as Assistant Chief Constable and on to Sussex at the end of 2018 as Deputy Chief Constable, finally being promoted to her current position in July 2020 as the very first female Chief Constable.

Jo told us that she is passionate about policing and is very proud to be a police officer, and revealed that she always has handcuffs in her handbag!   She is responsible for a budget of £350 Million with 1,461 square miles to police and a coastline of 140 miles, with a population of over 2 million people. Jo said that she strongly believes policing is all about locking up the bad people, protecting the right people, doing the right thing, getting involved with communities and responding to their needs, and delivering an outstanding service. She followed this by giving a comprehensive account of the wide variety of policing in the 2020s vividly illustrating things with the aid of a number of slides.

Outside her work, Jo proudly sits as a Trustee for the charity Embrace (Child Victims of Crime) and is also involved with the Princes Trust, as well as fundraising for all number of charities including The Beachy Head Chaplains who save lives every year. Jo is happily married to Andrew and lives in West Sussex.

Graham Dawson gave the Vote of Thanks.