Bringing police and communities together

Chief Constable Peter Fahy and Christie Spurling


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Published: 20 August 2009

More than 200 church leaders in Manchester joined neighbourhood police teams as part of a nationwide community campaign to help combat antisocial behaviour from gun and knife crime to vandalism and graffiti.

At the launch were the Chief Constable of Manchester, Peter Fahy, and Louise Casey, the government's crime and justice adviser.

The Chief Constable spoke movingly of his own deeply held Christian faith and his strong sense of vocation. Allan Cocking and Stephen Smillie testified to the way in which the gospel had liberated them from crime and prison. Christie Spurling, once a self-described young tearaway, received the Chief Constable’s award for his work with disruptive youths. 

Greater Manchester Police want to develop relationships with faith communities, churches and other places of worship.

The Chief Constable said, "We have been successful in reducing crime across Greater Manchester but we still face many challenges and my officers deal every day with the impact of broken relationships, local tensions and alcohol and drug addiction. We would like to work more closely with our faith communities to offer more hope in these situations."

The Bishop of Bolton, Chris Edmondson, said: “As well as being a tremendously significant and inspiring occasion in itself, this event has already had positive effects, as I discovered when talking subsequently to one of the senior officers from Bolton who was present. I hope there will be similar, smaller-scale events in the boroughs that make up Greater Manchester, again bringing together the police, local community leaders and Church leaders of all denominations”.


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