New Regional Director for the North East starts work

8 Feb 2018 01:06 PM

This week we welcomed Miranda Biddle, who has started work as our Regional Director for the North East.

Miranda’s main role at the IOPC is to oversee all investigations covering the Cleveland, Durham, Humberside, Northumbria, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire police forces, as well as cases involving HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Ports of Hartlepool and Tees.

Having worked within the criminal justice system for more than 25 years Miranda joins us from the Parole Board, where she was Director of Operations, and responsible for the delivery of the Board’s work to determine if prisoners can be safely released.

Previous to that Miranda was Deputy Director of HM Prison Peterborough, and has worked for a number of establishments across the prison service, probation service, as well as psychology and drug services within the statutory, independent and private sectors.

Miranda said: “I am very much looking forward to working at the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and all the opportunities and challenges that I’m sure will come with it. Over the coming weeks I’ll be meeting with police forces, Police and Crime Commissioners and community groups throughout the north east.

“I bring with me a wealth of experience from my work within the criminal justice environment, and hope to lend this to the important work of the IOPC in improving confidence in the police complaints system.”

Our new Director General, Michael Lockwood, heads up an operational team led by the Deputy Director General, five regional directors and a Director for Wales. We make our decisions entirely independently of the police and government and neither the Director General nor the directors have worked for the police.