Leicestershire Police


Leicestershire Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Leicestershire and Rutland in England. Its headquarters are at Enderby, Leicestershire.
The current Chief Constable is Simon Cole.

History

Leicestershire Police was formed in 1839. In 1951 it amalgamated with Rutland Constabulary to form Leicestershire and Rutland Constabulary and in 1967 merged with Leicester City Police to form Leicester and Rutland Constabulary. After the Local Government Act 1972 came into force in 1974 it was renamed Leicestershire Constabulary. In 2012 it changed to Leicestershire Police to be 'in keeping with modern policing'.
In 1965, Leicestershire and Rutland Constabulary had an establishment of 748 officers and an actual strength of 659.
Proposals made by the Home Secretary on 20 March 2006 would have seen the force merge with the other four East Midlands forces to form a strategic police force for the entire region. These plans were dropped in 2007.
In 2015 the force attempted to carry out a covert CCTV face recognition surveillance operation at the Download Festival, in which festival-goers would have their faces compared with a database of custody images, and only informed about the surveillance afterwards. The operation was inadvertently revealed in the magazine Police Oracle before the festival took place.

Local Policing Units

The local policing units for Leicestershire Police are as follows:
City:
Counties:

Aircraft

The roads policing unit drive marked BMW 5 series estates and BMW X5s. They have various unmarked Skodas, Audis, and BMWs. They also have a number of Yamaha motorcycles.

Uniform

Chief Constables of Leicestershire have been
The Police Roll of Honour Trust lists and commemorates all British police officers killed in the line of duty, and since its establishment in 1984 has erected over 38 memorials to some of those officers.
The following officers of Leicestershire Police are listed by the Trust as having died attempting to prevent, stop or solve a crime, since the turn of the 20th century: