Geisha Kow­lessar

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams has been ap­point­ed as act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er over the next five months af­ter the res­ig­na­tion of Dwayne Gibbs whose res­ig­na­tion takes ef­fect on Mon­day. The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) said yes­ter­day Williams' ap­point­ment was con­firmed dur­ing a com­mis­sion meet­ing yes­ter­day.

"In ar­riv­ing at its de­ci­sion the com­mis­sion gave care­ful and de­lib­er­ate con­sid­er­a­tion to the suit­abil­i­ty of el­i­gi­ble of­fi­cers and it was unan­i­mous­ly de­cid­ed Mr Williams is the most suit­able of­fi­cer to per­form the du­ties of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice at this point in time, pend­ing the per­ma­nent fill­ing of the of­fice," the PSC said in a state­ment. Williams' ap­point­ment be­comes ef­fec­tive next Mon­day to Jan­u­ary 31, 2013.

The com­mis­sion said it had in­struct­ed the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion to in­voke the pro­vi­sion le­gal no­tice to en­sure the posts of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er are per­ma­nent­ly filled in the ear­li­est pos­si­ble time. Williams, a lawyer, is the most se­nior of the deputies.

As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ray­mond Craig and Si­mon Alex­is al­so are ex­pect­ed to be made act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice. Both met with the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day. But while Williams is act­ing sources with­in the com­mis­sion said the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er's post could take as long as six months to a year.

"We have to be­gin the process of ad­ver­tis­ing and then go­ing through the ap­pli­ca­tions of the can­di­dates. That could take some­time," one of­fi­cial said. He said when the se­lec­tion process was be­ing con­duct­ed by Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty some two years ago the top five on the list for the po­si­tion of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er were for­eign­ers.

"Our lo­cal guys did not do all that good. They were not on top of the list," he added. The of­fi­cial al­so has ques­tioned whether Williams would make any marked dif­fer­ence in the face of spi­ralling crime. The of­fi­cial said there al­so was the be­lief by some that Gibbs was treat­ed un­fair­ly and he should have giv­en more time to ful­fil his du­ties. There were al­so com­plaints of nu­mer­ous and lengthy meet­ings Gibbs was man­dat­ed to at­tend on a week­ly ba­sis which left lit­tle time for his work.

About Williams

• Born on Au­gust 8, 1960 in Tal­paro.

• At­tend­ed Tal­paro RC School and Ari­ma Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary.

• Joined the Po­lice Ser­vice on April 18, 1977.

• Pro­mot­ed to the rank of As­sis­tant Supt in De­cem­ber 2001.

• Ad­mit­ted to the Bar in 1995.

• El­e­vat­ed to Se­nior Supt on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2006.

• In 2005, he was among six se­nior of­fi­cers who were sent to the UK to take part in an ex­change pro­gramme.

• Holds a mas­ters in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion.

• Holds sev­er­al diplo­mas in al­ter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tions.

• For­mer pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion.

• Mar­ried to Ava­son Quin­lan, a mag­is­trate.

• Fa­ther of five (four boys, one girl).