Four Scarborough police officers nominated for National Response Officer of the Year award

The National Response Officer of the Year award comes as part of #ResponsePolicingWeek.

It’s a week where North Yorkshire Police celebrate the hard work, dedication and bravery of their response officers - those who respond to emergency calls for help from the public and deal with crime and criminals every day.

Response policing is a difficult, demanding, unpredictable and at times dangerous role and the police team are incredibly proud of those who undertake that role day after day, to keep communities safe.

The Scarborough nominees were PC Chris Southern, PC Liam McLachlan, PC Sarah Green, and PC Paul O’Neill.

PC Chris Southern’s victim focus and his flexibility to adapt and adopt new practices to deliver a high quality of service to the public has been recognised in his nomination.

He is dedicated to developing his local knowledge to benefit the communities he serves, while also deepening his understanding and knowledge of priority policing areas such as Anti-Social Behaviour and County Lines drug dealing.

His supervisors talked about his passion for public service and the fact he will help anyone around him in any way he can. His team know he’s the first out of the door to attend any calls for service, recently to a complex robbery where he was first on scene, attending to traumatised victims and working with colleagues to secure the scene and preserve key evidence.

He regularly displays courage and leadership, but also great team working​ and compassion. His leadership skills were recognised in his nomination for the time and commitment he gives to tutoring student officers, with the Force’s Professional Development Unit describing Chris as ‘one of the best tutors they have seen.’

PC Liam McLachlan was nominated because in the last year, he has attended more incidents than any other officer in the Coast command, and quite possibly the force as a whole.

He’s shown great resilience and positivity as the local community recovers from the impacts of the pandemic and holidaymakers return to the Yorkshire Coast.

His nomination made specific reference to his positive approach and good humour, which has been a huge morale boost to his team. He is known for taking control at incidents, safeguarding victims and securing key evidence.

He has an in-depth knowledge of his local patch and has been a role model to student officers by both energetically pursuing offenders and protecting and safeguarding vulnerable victims.

His amazing energy and motivation are inspiring to his supervisors and peers, as is the consistently high standard of his work and his commitment to keeping the public of Scarborough safe.

PC Sarah Green has shown she was worthy of a nomination through her whole career.

On her first day as a response officer, Sarah faced a challenging incident which involved her giving CPR to a victim who sadly did not survive. Throughout the incident, Sarah acted with the upmost professionalism and empathy, dealing with distressed relatives in a caring and compassionate manner. She took personal responsibility to ensure the victim’s family were aware of the situation and the next steps of the coroner process.

Her supervisors were in awe of her professionalism on day one of the job and since then Sarah has demonstrated the same standards of performance and levels of compassion, regularly going above and beyond to put victims at the centre of her work.

PC Paul O’Neill started his career with North Yorkshire Police as a special constable, becoming a regular officer about seven years ago. His nomination pays particular regard to the fact that, as a special it was obvious that he had all the qualities needed to become an outstanding response officer.

He has policed the Scarborough and Eastfield area for a number of years which has meant he has built valuable relationships within the community, meaning he can quickly bring about positive outcomes for them.

He has been recognised for his exceptional safeguarding skills, using his understanding to identify vulnerable young people and working to ensure they are kept safe from harm and those who threaten them are brought to justice.

Paul is also a fantastic tutor to student officers, helping them to achieve and empowering them to develop as confident and proficient officers.

He inspires those around him and is a trusted and reliable officer who will always get the job done.

The winner of the award was PC Sophie Hodgson from York.