Meet the duo leading the fight against burglary in Greater Manchester on day of action

As part of the burglary day of action, Superintendent Chris Foster and Chief Inspector Vicki Kenyon share their past policing careers as they continue the successes of Operation Castle, GMP's operation to tackle burglaries across the force.

Superintendent Chris Foster

Superintendent Chris Foster’s policing career started a little later, after he joined South Yorkshire Police in 2003. Before this career change he was a primary school teacher in a number of different schools in Barnsley. 

And after nearly 10 years as a teacher he decided to embark upon a career in policing and attended Bruche training school in Warrington for the initial police training stage. He initially worked in Sheffield but quickly gravitated back to his home town of Barnsley five years later, where he was promoted to Sergeant.

He returned to Sheffield (his first beat) as a Sergeant and once promoted to Inspector and worked many events and trained in public order policing.

Rotherham was his first posting as Chief Inspector of Operations, and whilst leading the team, some brilliant results were achieved for the local communities which focused on keeping people safe from crime.

After being promoted to Superintendent in Greater Manchester Police, he arrived at the height of the COVID pandemic and took responsibility for GMP’s response before being asked to work at Tameside as an Operational Superintendent.

Speaking of his promotion, Chris said: “It was here that I was given the Operation Castle lead in 2021 and put my skills to use in the Digital Policing Programme. This allowed me some time to reflect on just how far GMP has come and look back on how many improvements we have made force wide in the fight against burglary.

“When I was 8-years-old my family home was burgled and I remember sleeping with a rolling pin under my pillow for months after, terrified of whoever it was coming back and it happening again.

“We understand that burglaries are an intrusion on you, your family and your home, something that is yours that someone else has no regard or respect for you, your family or your property and it drives us to catch these people and reduce the number of victims we see across the region."

Detective Cheif Inspector Vicki Kenyon

Chris’ deputy lead for Operation Castle is now Chief Inspector Victoria Kenyon, preferring Vicki who started her policing career in GMP at the age of 20.

After finishing her initial training at Bruche police training school, Vicki was posted to Elizabeth Slinger Road Police Station in South Manchester.

Vicki said: “After completing my probationary period two years later I knew that my career aspirations and passion were firmly focused on tackling serious crime and put my promotion aspirations to one side to focus on tackling crime in the community I served.”

For the next four years, Vicki spent her time developing her investigative skills in a proactive plain clothes unit before joining the station’s CID in 2007 to embark on training to become a Detective. In 2009 Vicki moved on promotion to Oldham as a Detective Sergeant, working in the Prisoner Processing Team and also the CID.

Wanting to learn more about crime intelligence, Vicki secured a job in the Force Intelligence Unit, where she worked as a Prison Intelligence Sergeant before moving onto the Organised Crime Coordination Unit in 2014.

Vicki said: “For me this really opened the doors to proactively targeting organised criminals, which is something which I really enjoyed doing.

 “In 2015, I went on temporary promotion to Detective Inspector in the City Centre and subsequently to Longsight. 

“The experience gained from my varied career has been invaluable in developing as a leader and in 2016 I was promoted to DI in the Serious and Organised Crime Unit which was a dream come true for me and my passion in policing, successfully leading proactive investigations into the most dangerous and prolific offenders within Greater Manchester is still some of my proudest moments within my career."

In 2019 Vicki was promoted to temporary Detective Chief Inspector and asked to lead on a number of areas of Change Management.

Vicki remained in change management until October 2020, improving on her resilience skills and after a short stint on the Major Investigation Team she felt at home being back in the world of investigations of serious crime.  

Speaking on her time in the Major Investigation Team, Vicki said, “Although the subject matter of murder is always difficult, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and gained great job satisfaction from justice for families getting a case through court and securing a conviction for the offender.

“In April 2021, I was successful in gaining substantive promotion to DCI and was transferred to Rochdale to take over responsibility for the CID, CSE, CCE and Op Challenger teams. I really enjoyed my time in Rochdale and was in awe of the dedication and motivation exhibited by the officers day after day in very difficult situations.

“In April 2022, I returned to my wonderful project team which is now the Digital Policing Programme. Although I enjoy the role within the project, my passion is within investigation which is one of the reasons why I have volunteered to become the Deputy Lead for Op Castle.”

Like Chris, Vicki has also dealt with her own experiences of being the victim of an attempt burglary after someone tried to break into her home overnight, which ultimately led to her moving house.

Vicki said: “Alongside Mr Foster, I hope my investigative and intelligence background across all areas of policing in GMP helps me make a real contribution to reducing this distressing type of crime and bringing offenders and those that profit from it to justice.”

Superintendent Chris Foster alongside neighbourhood crime team officers 

Operation Castle has been in place for two and a half years, and has seen results across districts with a number of offenders arrested and residents and also business owners given crime prevention advice to prevent repeat incidents together with dedicated burglary cars across districts to support communities.