Mark Brashaw Email & Phone Number

On returning to Thames Valley, I am now part of the crime strategy team. My role has been to review the way in which the force investigates certain crimes and to deliver a common approach accross the force ensuring that there is a high standard approach.I initially conducted a review of Burgalry investigations on each area within the force to identify areas who are doing well and why and also those who are not doing quite so well.From my findings, I have been able to streamline a burglary investigation toolkit which enables a common approach to this and many other offences in a structured way. In line with the imminent implementation of electronic devices, I have developed an application based programme where officers are able to access key areas within the forces guidance, mapping them to the most relevant and up to date protocols, guidance and techniques. This has now been rolled out accross the force and since then, I have developed a number of other toolkits which will assist officers at crime scenes and with their investigation management and will also reduce time waste and increase productivity with officers being able to work in the field.

I began a 2 year secondment to the Home Office Immigration enforcement team as Deputy senior investigating officer and Senior investigating officer. I was responsible for a team of home office and police officers and managed offences covering the South East region of the UK. My role was to investigate both national and international crimes which involved an element of either enforced immigration crime or Human trafficking offences, to manage the response to these crimes, to deliver an action plan around linked similar crimes identified at our ports and to develop a response plan to these, ensuring that my staff were available 24/7 to either respond or to give help and guidance. I managed a number of complex international cases involving organised crime groups exploiting UK immigration laws and human trafficking. I instigated joint working groups between the Home Office, UK Police forces and Police forces accross the EU. I developed a working strategy to enable the UK and EU law enforcement bodies to work closer together and to cut out some of the bureaucracy and due to the successes of my teams investigations, was invited as a special guest speaker to the EU conference at The Hague. Following on from these good working practices, I was invited to give a presentation to the Home Secretary.

Following on from my role as DS, I sat and successfully passed the national examination for Inspectors. I was temporarily promoted to acting inspector. My role was to manage a large team of shift and neighbourhood officers ensuring that they were equipped to carry out their roles, they were working to area strategies set to combat anti social behaviour, criminal behaviour within geographical areas, proactive and reactive investigations and that they had the time to conduct their own investigations. On occasion, I was the Inspector responsible for custody suites across the Oxfordshire region ensuring that relevant reviews were carried out, compliance with the law and that each custody suite was equipped to manage with the resources they had and that any issues were escalated to me. I was all the critical incident Inspector responsible for managing such incidents and where necessary, escalating them.Further to this, I was also responsible for a number of misconduct investigations.

My role as DS acquisitive crime was to manage a small team of officers and to investigate acquisitive crimes such as Burglary offences and vehicle offences but also to analyse crime patterns, conduct historical analysis of geographical urban and rural crime types, to implement a strategy around the management of emerging crime series linking in with local and specialist crime teams as well as key stakeholders and to bring offenders to justice using a number of both reactive and proactive methods. I interrogated offender management protocols, whilst ensuring value for money by rescheduling working times for officers to coincide with the strategic analysis. My approach saw huge reductions in crimes of this nature and resulted in the biggest increase in detected crimes and also the largest reduction in acquisative crime rates for the force. For this, the team and myself were awarded the Shrievalty award, the highest merit possible.

After finishing my two year probationary period in 2000, I became a Neighbourhood policing officer dealing with many disputes, anti social behaviour and various conflicts. I utilised a multi agency approach to problem solving policing and making people accountable for their actions and saw many successful conclusions to long standing issues. After 4 years of neighbourhood policing, I worked within the intelligence field predominantly drug enforcement. I designed and implemented a drug enforcement strategy which was implemented across the force. This had wide reaching implications, dealing with and managing not only the offenders but also the end users and welfare of vulnerable people.I then began my career as a detective constable managing the most serious crimes and again had many successes in this area. I successfully passed the national investigators exam and evidence portfolio to become a fully accredited detective. Within 2 years of becoming a detective, I was promoted to Acting Detective Sergeant responsible for a team of experienced investigators and complex investigations. I passed the national examination to become a Sergeant and was subsequently promoted to the rank.Again, I successfully completed the national accreditation and probationary period to be a substantive Sergeant and began my role managing a small team of officers, managing resources, crime scenes and progression on numerous investigations. After a year of managing a small team, I became a Custody Sergeant managing a large custody suite, legal issues, solicitors, personnel and persons detained. After a short period in custody, I was promoted to the rank of Detective Sergeant again managing a small team of detective and police constables and responsible for all acquisitive crime within a very large area. Not only was I responsible for crime investigation, I was also responsible for crime prevention, offender management and joint working between agencies.