The chief constable of a force which dealt with a spate of gun crime, including the shooting of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, has been awarded the King’s Police Medal.
Serena Kennedy said rebuilding public trust in the police was the number one priority for the force going forward, as she described her mention in the King’s Birthday Honours as recognition of the work of officers, staff and volunteers at Merseyside Police.
Speaking to the PA news agency about challenges the force faced in the future, she said: “The number one priority is trust and confidence.
It has been an incredibly challenging two years, for the force, for communities and for our partners— Chief Constable Serena Kennedy
“Confidence we know has been impacted in recent years because of things which have happened nationally and locally.
“We absolutely have to work incredibly hard to rebuild that trust.”
Last August the force dealt with three fatal shootings within a week including that of Olivia, who was killed by gunman Thomas Cashman as he chased a drug dealer into her Dovecot home.
Officers were called in from across the country as extra patrols were put onto the streets in the wake of the killings.
Ms Kennedy said: “Merseyside Police is one of the best-performing forces in the country with incredibly well-trained staff, but the volume and demand that created in terms of dealing with it in quick succession, that was the challenge.”
She praised the “fantastic” response from officers, but also from communities.
“Merseyside was determined to show regionally, nationally and internationally that it will absolutely not tolerate this,” she said.
“Communities did not want to be associated with that ‘no grass culture’ because of the murder of a nine-year-old child.”
Ms Kennedy, who became the first female chief constable of Merseyside in April 2021, said she hoped Olivia’s death would be a “watershed moment” and vowed the force would “relentlessly pursue” crime gangs whose use of knives and firearms had “devastating consequences” for communities.
She said “complexity and demand” continued to increase for police and 80% of incidents officers dealt with were not crime-related but due to mental health incidents.
The chief constable said the force was working with partners to implement the Right Care, Right Person policy, to ensure the right organisations were providing care.
But she said there were issues in terms of the capacity of other organisations and working together would be key.
“Police end up being the service of last response which is why with those really strong partnerships we can try and work through problems and solve them together,” she said.
Her first year in post saw Ms Kennedy faced with incidents including an explosion outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital, when Emad Al Swealmeen detonated a homemade bomb in a taxi, and the fatal stabbing of 12-year-old Ava White, who was killed by a 14-year-old boy in Liverpool city centre.
She said: “It has been an incredibly challenging two years, for the force, for communities and for our partners.”
