Essex Police is a territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Essex, in the East of England. Essex Police is responsible for a population of over 1.8 million people and an area of .
The chief constable is Ben-Julian Harrington, who took up the appointment in October 2018.
Essex and Kent Police share support services, such as administration, fleet and a Serious Crime Directorate (SCD). It's currently led by Assistant Chief Constable Andy Pritchard who works across both force areas. The collaboration between them began in 2010.
Essex Police are overseen by the elected Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, Roger Hirst.
History Essex Constabulary was formed in 1840. In 1965, the force had an establishment of 1,862 officers.
Southend-on-Sea Borough Police was established by the county borough of Southend-on-Sea, England, in 1914. In 1969, Southend-on-Sea Borough Police amalgamated with Essex Constabulary to become the Essex and Southend-on-Sea Joint Constabulary. This merger was campaigned against by the council and the local MPs. Colchester, at one time, also had its own police force.
The title was shortened to Essex Police in 1974. On 1 April 2000, Essex Police's boundary expanded further south-west, taking on the populated areas of Loughton, Waltham Abbey, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill from the Metropolitan Police, a result of boundary changes to the Metropolitan Police District for it to match Greater London's boundaries.
Epping Forest Keepers act as Epping Forest constables in the Forest parishes in the south-west of the Essex Police area; they have different powers from those of the Essex Police.
Chief constables Chief constables of Essex have been: Essex Constabulary (1840) 1840–1881: John Bunch Bonnemaison McHardy 1881–1887: William Henry Poyntz 1888–1915: Edward McLean Showers 1915–1932: John Alfred Unett 1933–1962: (Sir) Francis Jonathan Peel 1962–1978: Sir John Cyprian Nightingale (knighted in 1975 New Year Honours) Essex Police (1974) 1978–1987: (Sir) Robert Sidney Bunyard 1988–1998: John Halcrow Burrow 1998–2005: David Frederick Stevens 2005–2009: Roger Baker 2009–2013: Jim Barker-McCardle 2013–2018: Stephen Kavanagh 2018–present: Ben-Julian Harrington
Officers killed in the line of duty
The Police Roll of Honour Trust and Police Memorial Trust list and commemorate all British police officers killed in the line of duty. Since its establishment in 1984, the Police Memorial Trust has erected 50 memorials nationally to some of those officers.
Since 1849, the following officers of Essex Police were killed while attempting to prevent or stop a crime in progress: Constable Ian Dibell, 2012 Constable Gary John Veal, 2002 Constable Roderick Norton Daniels, 2001 Constable Christopher John Wiggins, 1992 Acting Sergeant Brian John Bishop, 1984 Constable Peter James Wringe, 1982 Constable Brian Arthur Rippingale, 1968 Sergeant Edmund Sleigh Frost, 1948 Constable George William Gutteridge, 1927 Constable Joseph Watt, 1913 Acting Sergeant Adam John Eves, 1893 Inspector Thomas Simmons, 1885 Constable Robert Bamborough, 1850 Head Constable William Campling, 1849
Organisation
Essex Police is one of the United Kingdom's largest non-metropolitan police forces with a strength of over 4000 sworn police officers. Its headquarters, the Force Control Room (FCR) (where emergency calls are routed to) and Essex Police College, are both located in Chelmsford. The chief constable is Rachel Nolan, the counties first female Chief Constable, taking over from Ben-Julian Harrington, who retired in August 2026.
Strategically, Essex is an important force. Bordering London, the force area consists of affluent city suburbs, large urban areas, industrial centres, rural villages, London Stansted Airport (one of the busiest international airports in the country) and two of the UK's major ports (Harwich and Tilbury). The force also polices one of the largest expanses of coastline of any force in the UK. The police area covers and has a population of around 1,800,000.
The force has been a regular innovator and is often used by the Home Office to trial new procedures and equipment, including automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), Lantern (handheld wireless fingerprint verification) and the X26 Taser.
Previously a number of specialist teams within Essex were grouped into the Mobile Support Division. In 2012, Essex Police moved away from the divisional structure to a patrol based structure and the former components of the Mobile Support Division were moved to new command structures. Roads Policing and Dog Section became part of the Response and Patrol function.
Crime Division Crime Division works across the territorial divisions of Essex and with forces nationwide, providing resources and expertise.
As a division within Essex Police, it deals with the specialist aspects of crime investigation, tending to focus on serious crime, but not exclusively and provides support to territorial divisions' efforts in investigating crime.
Crime Division has a command team structure of a divisional commander, supported by a director of intelligence, lead senior investigating officer, support manager and divisional administrative manager, based at the Chelmsford headquarters. This team is supported by section heads. The work of the various departments of Crime Division are both proactive and reactive.
Major Investigation Team The way in which major crimes are investigated has changed over time. 30 years ago, the head of Crime Division would have carried out every part of the investigation in a murder case himself, including interviewing key witnesses. However, this has now been transformed with the advent of computerised Major Investigation Rooms and concerns over handling complex, high-profile enquiries like the Stephen Lawrence case.
In April 2000, the Major Investigation Team (MIT) was set up to investigate homicides, abductions, rapes and extortion. Each major investigation has a senior investigation officer (SIO), who is like the conductor of an orchestra, overseeing all the different parts of the investigations. The SIO works with a MIT and they are supported by the resources of Major Investigation Centralised Administrative Support (MICAS).
There are four MIT offices: Harlow, Brentwood, Stanway and Rayleigh. The scale of enquiry determines the manpower required, the well-publicised case of the murdered schoolgirl Danielle Jones in June 2001 being a good example of the four offices 'pooling' resources and working as one team.
Operational Support Group (OSG) (QX) The OSG are members of Essex Police who are trained to deal with riots, drugs raids, Method of entry (MOE) Specialist MOE (SMOE) and Chemical Biological Radiation & Nuclear (CBRN) and evacuation in the event of a CBRN attack, and other public order incidents. They are the equivalent of the Metropolitan Police TSG unit. The OSG will travel outside of their home force for the collection of suspects that are detained in other parts of the country, who are wanted for offences that took place in Essex. They are based at Boreham, outside of Chelmsford. They will either be wearing the bump cap style baseball caps on patrol, or flat caps dependent on what duty they are undertaking.
When not engaged in other specialists duties, OSG officers perform mobile patrols. Most officers are trained in advanced driving, and assist Roads Policing Unit colleagues in pursuits and policing the roads using high performance vehicles. Alternatively, officers may support local officers in policing the night-time economy.
The OSG train regularly in public order tactics and methods of entry.
Force Support Unit (FSU) The FSU provide firearms and tactical assistance, equivalent to the Met's CO19 branch. They respond to firearms callouts, help out with drug raids, as well as taking part in covert operations. They also patrol Stansted Airport, and in September 2016, armed patrols started at Southend Airport and Lakeside shopping centre. The FSU officers are all Authorised Firearms Officers (AFOs) and can go on to be Specialist Firearms Officers (SFOs). They will either be wearing baseball caps on patrol, or the "Fritz" style helmet for tactical duties. The FSU shot Stephen Debley, the first person to be shot by Essex Police for 31 years as of October 2016. They have also been involved in many manhunts, the most well known and recent being the death of PC Dibell, who was shot by 63-year old Peter Reeve in Clacton on Sea.
Roads Policing Unit (RPU) The Essex Police Roads Policing Unit (RPU) operates out of four locations across the county. Part of OPC, the RPU works to the National Roads Policing Strategy which has five strands; casualty reduction, counter terrorism, anti-social use of the roads, disrupting criminality and high visibility patrols of the road network. RPU is supported by the Casualty Reduction Section, the Commercial Vehicle Unit and the Serious Collision Investigation Unit. The RPU patrol a road network, including major roads such as the A12, A120, M11 & M25.
The Safer Essex Roads Partnership (SERP) brought together the three local authority areas of Essex County Council, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council and Thurrock Council to provide a road safety service across the 'Greater Essex' region. The other SERP partners are Essex Police, Essex Fire and Rescue Service, Highways England, the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance Trust, the East of England NHS Trust and the Safer Roads Foundation.
When grouped under the operations of the Mobile Support Division, Essex Police's high-performance traffic unit, the ANPR Intercept Team (later renamed to the Territorial Support Team), was the subject of the first three series of Channel 5 television programme Police Interceptors between 2008 and 2011. Based from Chigwell, Laindon and Stanway, the ANPR Intercept Team utilised high-performance pursuit vehicles equipped with automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) systems, including Ford Mondeo ST220s and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IXs, later replaced by Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Xs and Subaru Imprezas in 2008, to pursue and intercept suspect vehicles with assistance from the force's Air Support Unit. One Subaru Impreza from this fleet would later be converted into a driving simulator in 2009 following an accident that damaged it beyond repair.
Special Branch Essex Police's Special Branch (SB) was formed in 1970, when MI5 required an input from all provincial police forces. The Special Branch deals with any matters which may involve any form of subversive activity, such as terrorism, which may affect either life or property nationally or internationally. The air and seaports are specific areas where SB officers operate to ensure that those involved in internal and/or external acts of terrorism are prevented from entering or leaving the country.
SB also maintains close contacts with other police services, both within the UK and abroad, to exchange information on persons who are known or believed to be involved in terrorist activity.
On the domestic front, SB combat public disorder by dealing with those involved in extreme activity of any description. Special Branch workload has increased exponentially in the years following the September 11 attacks and 7 July 2005 London bombings. Much of what SB does is highly sensitive, involving national security, and goes unnoticed by the general public.
SB officers are also tasked and trained in armed, close protection duties and work to protect royalty, VIPs and anyone else who could be under threat of attack or assassination, whilst in the Essex Police District.
The force's Marine Unit, based in Burnham-on-Crouch, was moved under the responsibility of the Special Branch in April 2014 as a result of force cutbacks.
Serious Crime Division