Roads Policing Unit Profile: Sergeant Dennis Delve

GMP has recently launched its Promotion Timetable and Transferee Campaign so colleagues can take their careers to the next level.

This is part of wider commitments under the Plan on Page that will see GMP attract the best talent to work for the force, while investing in and retaining the expertise we currently possess.

Here, Sergeant Dennis Delve talks about the attraction of working for the Roads Policing Unit and how he's been able to secure his dream career at GMP.

 

He said: "I left college and went to work in the control room for the Highways Agency. We had police liaison teams come in regularly, and I went on attachment with GMP a number of times.

"I'd always wanted to become a police officer, so applied and was successful. As soon as I could after that, I applied to join the Roads Policing Unit (RPU).

"People think it might take them years and years to get to where they want to be, but I've been promoted to Sergeant in-situ and wouldn't want to have gone anywhere else."

Now with the force for 14 years - 11 of those with the Roads Policing Team - Sergeant Delve works in GMP RPU's new Co-Ordination Unit - receiving intelligence, footage and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera 'pings'.

He dispatches colleagues utilising GMP's new fleet of high-powered cars to tackle everything from dangerous drivers to organised criminals gangs transporting drugs across Manchester's vast road network.

For anyone with a love of cars or motorcycles, it's an ideal way to have a job that's also a passion.

He said: "I've had bikes since I was 16. I learned to ride and then did the police motorcycle course when I joined. My career has allowed me to carry on that interest in motorcycles - it's a hobby I now get paid for.

"You get to go out on motorcycle patrol at big events like football matches or concerts. We've got liveried and unmarked bikes. If you can ride, there's no reason you can't go on patrol if you join us."

At 35-year-old Sergeant Delve is able to reflect on a great career doing what he loves - all because he picked up that pen and decided to join GMP.

"It's the satisfaction I get from knowing that within three years of working for the police I got to the place where I wanted to be - on the Roads Policing Unit.

"I do class myself as lucky - this is what I've always wanted to do."