“You can pick up so much and bring it back”: British Transport Police (BTP) Sergeant, Chris Duncombe, tells us about the opportunities for professional development with the International Police Association (IPA).
Filmed at the British Transport Police’s Wembley Park police station, PolicingTV Founder Bernard Rix met BTP Sergeant Chris Duncombe, to learn a little about his career as a BTP officer and also about his role as a Vice President of the International Police Association (IPA) Section UK, where Chris leads on professional development.
“I joined the Metropolitan Police as a Special back in 2014… [then] in 2015 I joined BTP (the Met weren’t hiring, BTP were)… “. “We [the BTP] are a specialised railway police force, we cover nearly all the railway network in England, Scotland and Wales, as one unified force”. “I’m the Vice President for Professional Development for the IPA Section UK… dealing with all the professional development matters, the CPD matters, for our approximately 8,000 members”. “Gimborn [the IPA’s training establishment in Germany] is quite literally a Baronial Castle, the Baron lives in one wing, we’ve got the rest of the facility. It’s about 40 minutes outside Cologne [Koln], in beautiful surroundings… They offer various different courses, in English, German, other languages.
Over the next year, we’ve got courses in human trafficking, officer safety, counter terrorism, with a whole range of literally world beating instructors from across policing coming in”. “Understanding how other people do things… you can pick up so much and bring it back”. “The Arthur Troop scholarship – it’s an international scholarship across the whole of the IPA globally. The aim of it is to provide funding for members to learn, and experience professional development opportunities, in places they wouldn’t [otherwise be able to experience] because of the funding”. “I came up here to Wembley in 2018 on promotion. Over the past few years, we’ve worked very hard setting up a neighbourhood policing team”. “Within policing, one of my loves is personal safety training and Taser. Back at the beginning of 2020, I had the opportunity to go to Belgium, to do my IPA Defensive Tactics Instructor course… Within BTP then, I undertook my instructor’s qualification not long after that”.
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