I am standing to be the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Police and Crime Commissioner on 6th May 2021.

I was elected as  Councillor for Abbey ward in Cambridge City Council in May 2018. I was appointed as Lead for Community Safety in that year and became Executive councillor for Community Safety and Transport in May 2019.

As Lead Councillor for Community Safety and Executive Councillor I have highlighted the need for change in the fight against domestic abuse.  I have hosted the Cambridge City Council Annual Domestic Abuse conference since 2018, featuring speakers from women’s services, survivors and specialist speakers. I am also chair of the Cambridge Community Forum on Domestic and Sexual Violence/Abuse and have also hosted the first of Cambridge’s annual survivor-led conferences.

There is no place for hate crime, and it is my hope that the Law Commission will expand the definition of hate crime to include misogyny. In the interim, I pledge to ensure that Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Constabulary register complaints of misogyny as hate crimes.

I have worked alongside the local police in tackling County Lines drug dealing, working in partnership to create ‘Operation Carmel’, a force-wide operation to tackle the increasing drug problem in our county. This is an operation that I am still involved in and  am keen to expand even further.

Due to increasing concern over cycle thefts, I created a cycle crime forum with partners, focusing on  causes such as poor cycle stand design, lighting, CCTV and poor lock choice. This work is on-going and we’re making good progress.

I believe that we need to do more to prevent crimes happening by working in partnership not just with local agencies but, most importantly, with communities themselves.The role of neighbourhood watch groups is key to real partnership working and I believe they should be given a voice and a bigger role in helping our communities.

We need real, invested neighbourhood working, bringing our communities to the table with the police, and not the other way round. It is very important that we listen to residents’ voices to let us know us what their priorities are, rather than just assuming as is all too often the case, especially on police matters. Our residents know their areas better than anyone, and what the concerns are, so it’s time we listened to and worked with them.  We need to bring the community to the police and not the police to the community.

I have lived in Cambridge for 8 years with my husband and three teenage children.  My youngest son was born prematurely and passed away from medical complications at the age of four, in 2013.  As a child I lived in Lincolnshire, not far from Wisbech, in a small village called Fleet Hargate.