Andy George

Andy George is the current President of the National Black Police Association (NBPA) in the United Kingdom and a serving police officer in the Police Service of Northern Ireland having joined the service in 1999.

The NBPA seeks to create a police service that represents, engages and delivers its services to all communities in a fair and equitable manner and represents around 5000 members in 47 local associations across the UK. As President, Andy works to improve support for members, liaises with senior leaders and wider stakeholders and engages with community groups from ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Andy advices the National Police Chiefs Council, College of Policing, Independent Office of Police Complaints and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire Service on racial equality, system change and police accountability. He also meets regularly with the government officials such as the Home Secretary and other key figures who are responsible for policing.

His police career began at a time of great change in Northern Ireland with the signing of the ‘Good Friday’ Agreement and the ‘Patton’ reforms being delivered in 1998 which brought about wholesale changes to policing in Northern Ireland. He worked during a targeted recruitment campaign which utilised positive discrimination for Catholic applicants which brought the levels of Catholic Officers from around 8% in 2001 to around 32% in 2011. The Police Service also went through a name change, change of symbols and badges and change of uniform to make policing more legitimate service in all communities. This was part of a larger raft of measures which sought to bring a more peaceful society in Northern Ireland.

Andy spent the first 8 years of his career in a local policing team dealing with emergency and priority calls before moving to the Armed Response Unit, for 10 years, where he was an Operational Firearms Commander, taking charge of firearms teams during spontaneous and pre-planned firearms operations. This involved the use of tactics and less lethal options designed to ensure a safe outcome for all parties including officers, the public and subjects.

He is now a Chief Inspector spending the majority of his time completing NBPA duties.