A senior officer who leads Police Scotland’s efforts to counter terrorism and organised crime has been suspended from duty following a “criminal allegation”.
The officer, understood to be Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Pat Campbell, was suspended from Wednesday, force oversight body the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) said.
Prosecution service the Crown Office has instructed police watchdog the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) to investigate the allegation.
A senior officer can be suspended if an allegation, if proven, would be sufficiently serious to amount to misconduct or if the nature of the allegation means suspension is in the public interest.
The SPA said in a statement: “The Scottish Police Authority has suspended a senior officer from Police Scotland duties.
“The decision was taken after a criminal allegation was brought to the authority’s attention.
“The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner is investigating this allegation under direction from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
“The suspension is effective from Wednesday 1 December and will be reviewed regularly, or if there is a change in circumstances relevant to the suspension.”
Mr Campbell’s role, which he took up a year ago, is executive lead for organised crime, counter-terrorism and intelligence, which also covers border policing, cyber crime and digital forensics.
He is senior responsible officer for cyber capabilities, cyber strategy and technical surveillance.
He joined Strathclyde Police in 1995, ahead of the merger of Scotland’s eight forces in 2013 to form Police Scotland.
When the forces merged, he was a detective superintendent working in public protection and divisional crime in Edinburgh.
In August 2018 he was promoted to detective chief superintendent and appointed strategic lead for specialist crime support.
Police Scotland Deputy Chief Constable Fiona Taylor said: “I can confirm that a senior officer from Police Scotland has been suspended by the Scottish Police Authority.
“This is in connection with a criminal investigation being carried out by the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner.
“The chief constable has reviewed Police Scotland’s command structure to ensure the organisation continues to meet operational demand.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel