Top policeman takes up new job

7:40pm Monday 1st September 2008

PETER Fahy was formally sworn in as the new Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police yesterday.

Mr Fahy, aged 49, the former Chief Constable of Cheshire, succeeded Michael Todd, who died, aged 50, after an apparent suicide on March 11 on Snowdonia.

A ceremony to mark Mr Fahy’s appointment was held at Salford’s Civic Centre in Swinton.

Mr Fahy will be running one of the country’s biggest police forces, which also has its own counter-terrorism unit.

He will have to lead the 12,000 Greater Manchester Police staff, including 8,000 officers.

Mr Fahy was shortlisted by the Home Office for the £168,000-a-year Chief Constable post. He is married with four children.

He faces his first meeting with the Greater Manchester Police Authority on Friday. A special meeting has been called because the Greater Manchester force has met just four out of 17 targets in the first quarter of the year.

For more on this story, read Tuesday's edition of the newspaper.