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Paul Stephenson (police officer)

Sir Paul Stephenson
QPM
Sir Paul Stephenson and Theresa May.jpg
Stephenson pictured in South London, May 2010
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
In office
28 January 2009 – 18 July 2011
Deputy Tim Godwin
Preceded by Sir Ian Blair
Succeeded by Bernard Hogan-Howe
Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service
In office
16 March 2005 – 28 January 2009
Preceded by Sir Ian Blair
Succeeded by Tim Godwin
Personal details
Born Paul Robert Stephenson
(1953-09-26) 26 September 1953 (age 63)
Bacup, Lancashire
Profession Police officer

Sir Paul Robert Stephenson QPM (born 26 September 1953) was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner from 2009 to 2011.

Stephenson joined the Lancashire police in 1975 and attended the Bramshill staff training course. As a superintendent, he was closely involved in the inquiry into the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster. After serving as chief constable of Lancashire, he was promoted deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in 2005, acting commissioner in 2008, and finally commissioner in January 2009. In July 2011, Stephenson resigned over speculation regarding his connection with Neil Wallis, suspected of involvement in the News International phone hacking scandal.

Stephenson grew up in Bacup in the Rossendale district of east Lancashire, the son of a butcher. He attended Fearns County secondary School in Stacksteads where he excelled at swimming and went on to Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School to do his 'A' levels and became head boy.

Stephenson originally desired a career in the footwear industry, and took up work at the Bacup Shoe Company factory in nearby Stacksteads. By the age of 20 he was made a trainee manager, but in 1975 he followed his elder brother into the police force.

He now shares a home in Lancashire with his wife Lynda and their three children.

Stephenson joined the police service in 1975, aged 21 and spent much of his early service as a constable attached to the Lancashire Underwater Search Unit. In 1982 Stephenson attended the Bramshill police training college near Hook in Hampshire as a sergeant on the Special Course at the same time as Sir Hugh Orde, Peter Clarke, Tim Brain, Paul Kernaghan, Frank Whitely, Jane Stitchbury and numerous other chief police officers. He became a sergeant in Bacup (1983), then an inspector in Burnley (1984) and a Chief Inspector in Colne Traffic Department (1986). He became a superintendent at the age of 34 in February 1988 when in Accrington as sub-divisional commander before being appointed to a Headquarters research and planning post where he also acted as staff officer to his then Chief Constable, Brian Johnson CBE, QPM, who was professional advisor to Sir Peter Taylor during the course of him undertaking the Hillsborough Inquiry (1989–1990). Stephenson was thus party to all of the material submitted to and considered by the Taylor Inquiry, albeit in a relatively junior position. He took a six-month secondment to the (former) RUC in the early 1990s as a sub-divisional commander, a posting that ended in some acrimony. He returned to Lancashire to a further Headquarters support post before being appointed in 1994 as a sub-divisional commander then divisional commander in Preston. He has also served as Assistant Chief Constable in Merseyside Police starting in 1994 until 1999 and Deputy Chief Constable in Lancashire from May 1999 under Chief Constable Pauline Clare. Stephenson supplanted Pauline Clare and was himself appointed as Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary in July 2002 and promoted to deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in February 2005.


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