Walter Finch
THE triumphant announcement of a new Commissioner of Police for Gibraltar after an exhaustive selection process has been darkened by the return of the McGrail inquiry this week.
Commander Owain Ceri Richards will take the hot seat from the retiring Richard Ullger in July with a daunting in-tray of challenges to overcome.
The decision to hire an outsider seems to have been met with approval from all sides, with the Chief Minister having expressed a preference for hiring an external commissioner.
The first non-Gibraltarian to run the post since 1997, he will arrive with 30 years of policing experience under his belt – including working with small communities in his native Wales and tackling street crime with the Metropolitan Police in London.
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But the Welshman will be following a prickly path that saw both previous CoP Ian McGrail forced to retire early in 2020 and incumbent Ullger face allegations of impropriety – of which he was cleared.
The ghost of McGrail and the end his career met at the hands of the notorious Operation Delhi will be hanging over Richards from the moment he takes the reins on July 1.
With the McGrail inquiry reconvening and a host of barristers flying into the Rock this week to duke it out in the Garrison Library over the former police commissioner’s early retirement, it underlines how policing in Gibraltar is not always a matter of patrolling the streets.
“Does his experience make him of the calibre required for policing a place like Gibraltar?” one senior figure on the Rock asked.
“Is he going to look at what happened in the past? You need to look at the past because otherwise the same problems can happen again.
“So the question is, is he going to grasp the nettle and look at what happened to the police in the last five years?
“Maybe he’s going to be naive and try to avoid trouble, which is fair enough.
“But I think he should grasp the nettle.”
One individual with knowledge of the recruitment process assured the Olive Press that Richards is well-equipped to ‘swim with Gibraltar’s sharks’ and has plenty of experience beyond street-level crime.
Of five or six candidates who were under consideration, Richards was ‘clearly the standout front runner from the start’ as someone who had ‘managed to navigate the Metropolitan police successfully – which has not been without its own problems.’
“This is a highly successful officer who has experience of not just financial crime, but also cutting edge policing in cyber crime and economic fraud,” the source said.
“Richards will rely on his team who certainly have knowledge of the local landscape to navigate Gibraltar.
“He has the skills and the temperament. He’s more than equipped to do the job.”
The new police chief’s immediate challenges will extend far beyond eyeballing the difficulties and pitfalls of his predecessors.
The RGP workforce of roughly 250 officers has been decimated by almost 25% attrition since 2020, according to testimony from the McGrail inquiry.
A combination of retirements – some early – and officers taking up positions in government – some through the McGrail-related ‘witness inducement’ scandal – have taken their toll.
It was alleged during the inquiry that out of 22 officers who had left, 18 took up government employment.
This has led to the closure of the dedicated Drug Squad and the Community Policing Team, the resources from which have been redirected to combating economic and cyber-enabled financial crime, as well as the Safeguarding team.
