2023 Speakers

Gareth started his post university life as an event manager and Trustee for a charity following his first degree in Law from Lancaster University. He then moved into Policing, beginning as an Emergency Response Officer, and subsequently moving on to become a Community Beat Manager, a trainee Detective, a murder investigator, and finally into police supervision. During this period he completed his second degree in English: Communication in the workplace, before qualifying as a uniform police Sergeant and entering onto the UK High Potential Policing Scheme. Whilst on the scheme, Gareth gained his MSc in Strategic Policing and Leadership from Warwick Business School, whilst also receiving a scholarship for a second Masters in Research in Policing from Canterbury Police Research center.

He then spent a period working for the College of Policing on the UK National Leadership Review, before writing and submitting the proposal for the Policing Education Qualification Framework for Policing in England and Wales. Gareth then moved to work at HMICFRS, where he designed the national inspection framework for leadership in UK policing, and trained the national cohort of police Insp’s for subsequent national inspections.

Following this period in policing governance, Gareth returned to uniform policing. He worked in change management and evidence based policing in partnership with the N8, UCLan and Cambridge, and worked on several force wide change intitiaves. He then returned to uniform policing and became an emergency response shift Inspector, before moving back into Community Policing, and finally into a Chief Inspector role managing approximately 300 uniform officers.

After 18 years in Policing, Gareth resigned from the force and moved to the UAE where he is currently an Interim Program Chair in Policing and Security at Rabdan Academy. His PhD was in presocialisation and police recruitment and he has 2 publications accepted and another 4 collaborative articles in train. The researched focused on under-represented police recruits and how they are disadvantaged by existing social conditions during police recruitment. His research is mainly based in presocialisation, but current research topics include whistleblowing, integrity and cultural intensity. He is currently working with academics from John Jay Police College in New York, Leicester University, Kingston University London and Manchester University.

Over the past year, Gareth has been responsible for program curriculum and syllabi redesign, quality assurance and assessment development, and the management of faculty. This has incorporated the development of research schedules and support, and the building of partnerships with key government entities and universities around the world. This has included the development of international student and faculty exchange programs, and developing plans to increase student attainment. Under Gareth’s leadership the Policing faculty currently operate with the highest student attainment and the highest teaching faculty satisfaction in the Academy.