A police officer who started his working life as a fisherman before pounding the streets in Peterhead as a young constable has risen to take one of the top jobs in Scotland’s new force.
Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Campbell Thomson has been appointed to lead the North Command area, which stretches across the Highlands to Dundee, with Aberdeen, Moray and Aberdeenshire at the heart of his watch.
Mr Thomson said it was a “tremendous” time for him as he gets ready take control of the area he calls home.
He had been based in Glasgow for the past year as head of Major Investigation Teams, making regular trips back to his family, but said he was delighted to be returning to the north-east full time.
Originally from Lossiemouth, Mr Thomson began his career in Grampian Police in 1990 with past roles including head of CID at the old force, which dissolved with the creation of Police Scotland on April 1 last year.
He is now one of six ACCs running the single force under the guidance of Chief Constable Stephen House.
It was when he was 24 that he left his job as a fisherman in Peterhead to start his policing career.
Mr Thomson said: “I became a fisherman like so many from the area before me but unfortunately the industry went into decline – and I went on to join the police.”
He was promoted to CID in 1995, working in Peterhead and Fraserburgh, with a diet of “house breakings, drug offences, robberies and violence” on his doorstep.
Mr Thomson added: “Obviously since then, policing has evolved and of course the most significant change has been the move towards the single force.”
He said the move to Police Scotland allowed specialist teams to supplement local policing, which could now continue to run smoothly in the event of major incidents.
Mr Thomson added: “Everything revolves around local policing. Before it was the case that if you had a major incident, everything else would shut down. Now we have the specialist squads to keep everything running.”
He said he did not believe that policing had become more remote under the new force and that divisional commanders worked “very hard” to keep police work visible and accountable locally.
He added that one of main challenges was creating an understanding of the budget constraints facing police.
However, he said he could not go into detail around moves to close the police’s 999 call control centres in Aberdeen and Inverness adding that he was “very conscious” of the ongoing discussions.