New District Commander For N Warwickshire

North Warwickshire Police District has a new face at the helm.

You could say that Chief Inspector Chris Lewis, who arrived at Atherstone Police Station last week, has been in training for the post of Northern Area District Commander, having moved from the post of Head of Centre at the Police Training Centre at Ryton.

But Chief Inspector Lewis is no stranger to the Northern Area, or to North Warwickshire in particular, having served at Atherstone twice before during his 21 year police career.

His first posting on joining Warwickshire Police as a police constable in 1983 was to Bedworth, where he was based until 1986 when he made his first move to work in Atherstone as a beat officer.

Moving into CID while still at Atherstone the then Detective Constable Lewis was later transferred to Nuneaton CID, before making a brief move to South Warwickshire as uniform sergeant at Leamington, a post he also held when he returned to North Warwickshire at Bedworth Police Station.

Transferring back into CID he worked as a Detective Sergeant at Nuneaton and later in Rugby, during which time he also spent some time in the Fraud Squad and the Child Protection units.

From 1996 to 2001 he was based at Force Headquarters at Leek Wootton in the post of Inspector Firearms Operations and Training before again returning to Atherstone as the Sector Inspector.

Gaining promotion to the rank of Chief Inspector in October 2001, he became Head of Training at the Police Training Centre at Ryton. In 2003 he was further promoted to the post of Head of Centre at Ryton in the rank of temporary Superintendent.

Now he is making his third return to Atherstone, this time in the role of District Commander.

Speaking about his new appointment Chief Inspector Lewis said: "I live in the North of the county and I know the area well. In North Warwickshire I am inheriting a good performing district, for which I have my colleagues to thank who have preceded me as District Commander and I fully intend to maintain those levels of performance, and even try and improve on them.

"I am looking forward to working in partnership with the other agencies to reduce crime across the district. The police cannot do all this on their own, we must work in partnership to achieve results and I am looking forward to that.

"I really want the people of North Warwickshire to feel they are getting a good service and will be trying to ensure that is what they get."

As District Commander for North Warwickshire Chief Inspector Chris Lewis, is responsible for policing across North Warwickshire including Atherstone and Coleshill.

He takes over the post of Northern Area District Commander from Acting Chief Inspector Martin Samuel, who was appointed as temporary District Commander in June following the transfer of Chief Inspector Neil Hewison to District Commander for Nuneaton and Bedworth district. Inspector Samuel now moves to be the Staff Officer to the Chief Constable, based at Headquarters

Chief Inspector Graham Moreton, who formerly held the post of District Commander for Nuneaton and Bedworth is currently Head of Judicial Services in Leamington Spa Police Station.

Chief Inspector Lewis is a keen sports enthusiast who regularly plays at Nuneaton Cricket Club. He has also just embarked on a distance learning Masters Degree course in Police Science and Management at the University of Portsmouth.

He lives in Nuneaton and is married with three children, aged from 11 - 15 years.