Police in the Borough of Ealing have a new boss with the arrival of Chief Superintendent Colette Paul. She officially took over from Acting Borough Commander Superintendent Laura Nicholson at the beginning of this month. She was previously best known for being handed responsibility for the highly sensitive task of leading the raid on the Finsbury Park Mosque in 2003

On starting her new job she said, "“I am very excited to have the opportunity to command Ealing Borough Police. Throughout my service I have worked closely with local authorities, partners and communities on a range of different projects to reduce crime and disorder, improve public reassurance and assist in reducing the fear of crime."

Until recently, she was based at New Scotland Yard, working as the Commissioner’s Staff Officer and prior to that as a detective with the Anti-Terrorist Branch .

She was previously involved with the introduction of Domestic Violence Units to each borough across the London and has worked on developing community based policing, partnership agreements with the Muslim Safety Forum and the Community Safety Trust.

She said, "As Borough Commander I aim to improve on past and present successes by continuing to reduce all crime and disorder on Ealing Borough. I believe that through partnership with the local authority, partners and the community, the Safer Ealing Partnership can maintain and achieve greater success, improve community engagement, reduce crime and anti-social behaviour on Ealing Borough over time."

Her predecessor in the role, Martin Bridger said, "I have no doubt that the support I continue to receive from our partners and members of the community will be passed onto Colette, thus continuing to benefit everyone and help achieve the mission of making Ealing Borough a safer place to live, work and pass through."

She has been a serving police officer in the Metropolitan Police for 23 years, beginning her career as a PC in Edmonton in 1982 and then working on attachment to the Vice Unit at Stoke Newington. She then returned to Edmonton to work in Criminal Investigation Department (CID) as a Detective Constable on the Burglary and Crime Squads. In 1986 she was promoted to Sergeant and worked in the Tottenham area where she was instrumental in setting up the Domestic Violence Unit at Tottenham, which in turn was the benchmark for setting up Domestic Violence Units across London. She then joined the CID and was responsible for supervising the Crime Squad at Bethnal Green.

In 1992 she was promoted to Police Inspector and posted to Hornchurch as a uniformed operational Police Inspector responsible for partnership policing. She then joined the Criminal Investigation Department at Forest Gate and was responsible for the running of the reactive Robbery Squad and worked on attachment on the Murder Squad.

On promotion to Detective Chief Inspector in 1996, Colette was posted to Hackney and Shoreditch where she was responsible for the management of CID. In 1998, Colette took a career break from the Metropolitan Police Service and worked for the British High Commission in Ottawa, Canada, working as a community liaison officer, where she assisted British residents settle in Canada. She returned in 2000 and was promoted to Superintendent and ran the MPS Racial and Violent Task Force and wrote the MPS Diversity Strategy. Later she took up the post of Detective Superintendent Senior Investigating Officer in the MPS Anti –Terrorist Branch.

In 2004, following promotion to Chief Superintendent, Colette became staff officer to the then Commissioner of the MPS Sir John Stevens.

March 15, 2005