The Oliver Coss column: What now?

From the very beginning of his tenure as Chief Constable of Northamptonshire, it was evident that Nick Adderley was destined to become something of a local celebrity. In many ways, he arrived at an opportune time. Changes to the organisation of the emergency services in the county, were set to rationalise the expensive and duplicative facilities run by Northampton Police and Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service, meaning more money released from infrastructure into front-line services. This was to be in stark contrast to the declining fiscal situation that had affected his predecessor, the quietly-spoken Simon Edens, who had been decorated for gallantry while serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (now the Police Service of Northern Ireland) and had taken a leading role in the search for the Soham girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002. On becoming Chief in Northamptonshire, Edens had to be open about the challenges of doing more with less money, whereas Adderley was fortunate enough to see improved resources flowing into the force just at a time when policing priorities were changing.

His greatest advocates were undoubtedly among the officers and personnel of Northamptonshire police, for whom he became a popular leader around whom they strongly cohered. This was no small achievement, especially in a time where institutions were so regularly under attack, and where the police service in London and elsewhere had been rocked by so many scandals. Northamptonshire could not realistically be made accountable for the problems of, say, the Metropolitan Police Service, but the challenges to the sort of policing envisaged by Sir Robert Peel it created were manifold. The ‘Peelian Principles’ exhorted policing ‘by consent’, an approach to gaining legitimacy for public policing by driving standards in transparency, integrity, and accountability.

The last few months have put the exercise of those principles under incredible strain. The admixture, into an impressive track record of service to several police forces in England, of a fantastical military and war-time record has seen the career of a highly capable and evidently effective officer end disgracefully in the blink of an eye. Quite understandably, huge numbers of people – within and without Northamptonshire Police – will be asking how this happened. Did we feel somehow flattered that an officer with a distinguished service record would want to come to Northamptonshire? Was the self-esteem problem with our ‘forgotten’ county somehow at play in the failure to properly check the truthfulness of those who applied to be the guarding of the Thin Blue Line? Naturally, we might be wondering what else lurks in this narrative of untruths and ‘sustained brazen dishonesty’.

While we need to be proportionate in responding to this, it remains the case that this is the latest in a series of scandals to rock the leadership of Northamptonshire’s public institutions. It is right that the officers and staff of those organisations should not face censure simply because of the failures of their leaders, but that should not stop us from some corporate self-reflection as a county on why this keeps happening, how we might rebuild credibility and integrity in public service, and how we assuage the anger of so many who’ve been let down.