Former PSNI Chief says Lunitics could end up running British Police

Coalition plans for directly elected American-style police commissioners to end the 'disconnect' with the ordinary public will be unveiled by the British Home Secretary today.


Voters will be allowed to elect powerful officials who can then order chief constables to carry his or her set of policies - or face the sack.



The new commissioners - whose creation has been vigorously opposed by senior police officers - will also control multi-million pound force budgets.



Theresa May hopes the reforms will make forces more responsive and end the 'job for life' culture that senior Tories believe leads to complacency amongst some chief constables.



But she faces fierce opposition from the Association of Chief Police Officers whose president, Sir Hugh Orde, has previously warned that the new jobs could attract 'retired coopers or lunatics'. Sir Hugh who once headed up the PSNI knows only too well what it is like when the lunatics take over the asylum, with former terrorists now on the policing partnership boards in Northern Ireland.



Mrs May will say: 'For too long, the police have become disconnected from the communities they serve, they have been bogged down by bureaucracy, and they have answered to distant politicians instead of the people.



'These reforms will cut out the bureaucracy generated by centralised control of the police, they will make the police more responsive to their local communities and, in doing so, they will once again become crime fighters rather than form writers.