The Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s office has kindly supplied us with this biography of the newly appointed commissioner, Tony Porter.
Tony brings to the role of Surveillance Camera Commissioner a combination of business and law enforcement expertise. He is an intelligence specialist (most recently within the financial sector) and retired senior police leader. His experience spans community and business engagement, international counter terrorism and serious and organised crime.
He joined Greater Manchester Police (GMP) in 1982 serving communities in Stockport, Manchester and Oldham in a variety of roles. His first command in 1996 was a challenging inner city district within Manchester. Subsequently he was appointed Head of CID for South Manchester(1998) leading on several high profile gang related homicide investigations, major crime enquiries and providing advice to the force and divisional command on crime reduction.
Upon promotion to Chief Superintendent he took strategic responsibility for community policing across Greater Manchester. He led the force in issues as broad as developing community engagement strategies, initiating Independent Advisory Group policy, Crime Prevention and Diversity Strategies.
In 2003 he was appointed Head of Special Branch (GMP) and subsequently became Head of Profession (Special Branch) in the North West Region before. commanding the North West Counter Terrorism Unit from 2006 to 2012. In 2008 he was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal in the New Year’s Honours list for distinguished service to policing.
In June 2012 Tony was promoted to T/Assistant Chief Constable and performed the role of National Co-ordinator (Pursue) throughout the duration of the London Olympics. This role entailed responsibility for the management, supervision and direction of all CT investigations throughout the Games.
Tony moved from policing in September 2012 and took the role of Vice President Head of Physical Security Intelligence for Barclays Bank. Since then he has developed strategic threat assessments across Europe for Barclays informing the business of emerging threats. He has also forged closer relationships between the financial sector and law enforcement and was appointed Chair of the British Banking Association Intelligence Group which represents 174 banks in over 60 countries.
