It was a lovely, warm June day – not I suspect what the charming Charmaine Woolley, the event organiser wanted because people did stay away, however it was the first event of its kind in the Telford area and will provide a platform for next year.

Being the inaugural event there was an impressive list of big names present – Chief Constable David Shaw, Police and Crime Commissioner Bill Longmore, Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner Barrie Sheldon and Superintendent James Tozer – all of whom spoke before we broke up into groups for workshop sessions on whichever of the three subjects interested you most.

I chose cyber crime.   For me this was the really interesting part of the day and I would have been interested in being able to participate in workshop sessions on at least two of the three subjects and spending more time getting under the skin of those issues.    The day prompted me to buy Misha Glenny’s fascinating book, Dark Market, which explores the world of cyber crime and the tough time that law enforcement agencies across the globe have fighting it.  British policing comes out of it well – SOCA (the Serious Organised Crime Agency, replaced by the National Crime Agency is 2013) were trusted partners of both the FBI and the American Secret Service who were finding it difficult to share intelligence with each other!