David Gardner will become the forces’s new top cop after his appointment was ratified by the Staffordshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel on Thursday (October 29).

Councillors have backed the appointment of Staffordshire Police’s new Chief Constable.

David Gardner will become the forces’s new top cop after his appointment was ratified by the Staffordshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel on Thursday (October 29).

The Staffordshire resident is currently Acting Chief Constable of Warwickshire Police and has led significant change programmes within the force, including the recent modernisation of its digital capabilities. He began his policing career in 2001 as a constable, before making his way through the ranks and working nationally on secondments to the Home Office and National Crime Agency, and he is an experienced Firearms and Public Order Commander.

Becky Riggs has been serving as Acting Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police since August 2025, following the suspension of former Chief Constable Chris Noble. She will continue to lead Staffordshire Police in the interim period, until Mr Gardner is able to assume the post in the coming months, and was thanked for her work by Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Ben Adams.

At Thursday’s Police, Fire and Crime Panel meeting, Mr Adams told members of the robust process involved in selecting his preferred candidate for the position of Chief Constable. The selection panel included senior member of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, as well as the Interim CEO of the College of Policing, and the two shortlisted candidates also met with representatives of charities and support organisations looking at vulnerability and police duty to protect those who need help.

Mr Adams said: “We have had a bit of a bouncy road in terms of our force leadership in the last two years. Regrettably, I was required to suspend our previous Chief Constable; Mr Noble resigned just before a hearing which found he would have been dismissed had he not resigned.

“That’s an unfortunate situation, not one I was expecting to be in, and it meant I was looking for absolute rigour in this process. I was looking for somebody with the very highest professional standards and personal integrity, someone to lead by example, be visible and approachable, and actively engage with victims, communities, partners and stakeholders and the workforce.

“I’m looking for a culture at the organisation where performance is valued, productivity, but also respect for colleagues. We’re living in a world where to get the best out of people you have to recognise they’re all different and give them an opportunity to play to their strengths.

“There’s real emphasis on support for victims and a recognition of the value that the services my teams provide are absolutely fundamental. Getting that balance between vulnerability, protection and looking after the concerns of the community is absolutely imperative.

“At the middle of that are victims and we all have responsibilities around resolving issues. It’s not just for the police, fire service or council.”

Panel members spent more than an hour quizzing Mr Gardner at Thursday’s confirmation hearing. After their deliberations, they made a unanimous decision to endorse his appointment as Chief Constable.

Mr Gardner said: “Thank you very much. It’s a real honour for me to do the role and I look forward to making a real difference here.

“I genuinely think it’s a fantastic police force, full of really good people. I have a personal connection to Staffordshire; I live here and have done for quite a few years, my children have gone to schools, colleges and universities in Staffordshire.

“I joined policing just over 25 years ago as a uniformed police constable doing response policing and neighbourhood policing for the first few years of my career. I got promoted to be a sergeant in response policing and did that front line policing role for quite a few years – in those early years of my career I was at a domestic incident once and got stabbed.

“A lot of the rest of my career is quite strategic, but I have done my turn of the hard edge of policing, dealing with the stuff you have to do at two in the morning keeping the public safe. I’ve done various roles within the inspector rank of policing and I was lucky to get accepted onto the College of Policing’s High Potential Development Scheme.

“I think one of the key roles of a Chief Constable is to convert the complexity of policing – and policing is a hugely complex thing – into understandable clarity for both the public and workforce, so people can deliver with real purpose and clarity what they are there to do. A high-performing Staffordshire Police needs to get those real basics of policing right.

“That means answering calls to service, responding to them really effectively and really efficiently, so the public can be confident if they ring us, they will get a good response from us. It means investigating crime well, so if you are a victim of a crime you know you are going to get a good service from the force, you’re going to be supported and you’re going to get a good outcome to that investigation from us.

“Those pillars need to be supported by really good neighbourhood policing. You have to get that bit right, and really good safeguarding and vulnerability functions across the force.”