Geoffrey Dear, Baron Dear

Geoffrey Dear, Baron Dear, born in 1937, is a retired British police officer who rose from cadet to Chief Constable of West Midlands Police and later sat in the House of Lords as a crossbench peer. He joined Peterborough Combined Police as a cadet, became a constable in 1956 and studied law at University College London on a Bramshill Scholarship. His senior posts included Assistant Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, Director of Command Training at the Bramshill police college, Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, and Chief Constable of West Midlands Police from 1985 to 1990, followed by service as one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary. In the Metropolitan Police he introduced racial awareness training after the 1981 Brixton riots. In the West Midlands he led the force through the aftermath of the 1985 Handsworth riots and the investigation into the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, and he disbanded the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad in 1989 after its malpractices came to light. The criminologist Robert Reiner chose him as his prime example of the modern chief constable. He advised the Auld Review of the Criminal Courts and was created a life peer in 2006.