Leicestershire Police was formed in 1839. In 1951 it amalgamated with Rutland Constabulary to form
Leicestershire and Rutland Constabulary and in 1967 merged with
Leicester City Police to form
Leicester and Rutland Constabulary. After the
Local Government Act 1972 came into force in 1974 it was renamed Leicestershire Constabulary. In 2012 it changed to Leicestershire Police to be 'in keeping with modern policing'. In 1965, Leicestershire and Rutland Constabulary had an establishment of 748 officers and an actual strength of 659. Proposals made by the
Home Secretary on 20 March 2006, would have seen the force merge with the other four
East Midlands forces to form a strategic police force for the entire region. These plans were dropped in 2007. In 2015, the force attempted to carry out a covert
CCTV face recognition surveillance operation at the
Download Festival, in which festival-goers would have their faces compared with a database of custody images, and only informed about the surveillance afterwards. The operation was inadvertently revealed in the magazine
Police Oracle before the festival took place. The aim of the operation was to identify organised gangs of pickpockets deliberately targeting festivals across Europe.
Chief constables the
chief constable is Rob Nixon. The chief constables of Leicestershire have been: • 1839–1876: Frederick Goodyer (first Chief Constable of Leicestershire) • 1876–1889: Captain Roland Vincent Sylvester Grimston • 1950–1972: John A Taylor • 20222025: Rob Nixon • 2025-present David Sandall (acting)
Officers killed in the line of duty The
Police Roll of Honour Trust and
Police Memorial Trust list and commemorate all British police officers killed in the line of duty. Since its establishment in 1984, the Police Memorial Trust has erected 50 memorials nationally to some of those officers. The following officers of Leicestershire Police are listed by the Trust as having died attempting to prevent, stop or solve a crime: •
PCs Bryan Reginald Moore and Andrew Carl Munn, 2002 (fatally injured when their vehicle was rammed during a
police pursuit) •
Sergeant Brian Dawson, 1975 (shot dead upon arrival at reports of a man firing into the street) • PC William Adiel Wilkinson, 1903 (shot dead in ambush by men who bore police a grudge) • PC Thomas George Barrett, 1886 (beaten to death by a man he spoke to about non-payment of a fine). ==Local Policing Units==