Politics should be kept out of policing says the chairman of Thames Valley Police Authority, who hopes to be the elected police boss.

Khan Juna is standing as an independent candidate for the role of Police and Crime Commissioner on Thursday, November 15.

He cited the kind of policing found in the USA, India and Pakistan as a dire warning of what can happen when politicians get involved with running the police.

He asked: “If police officers are not allowed to be involved with political parties, why on earth should the person who is responsible for the accountability of the police force be a politician?”

He added: “In recent years in the United States they have been looking at our policing system to see if they can make theirs more like ours which is ironic since we are now introducing politics into our system.”

Mr Juna, well known in Reading in his role as executive member of Reading Council for Racial Equality (RCRE), has been a member of the Thames Valley Police Authority since 2003 and its chairman since 2008.

As a member, he has overseen human resources, audit and governance, professional standards, appointments and pay.

He has been involved with appointing the most senior police officers and scrutinising their work, setting the police budget and evaluating the performance of the force.

Mr Juna, 59, from Wickford Way, Lower Earley, has been a member of the Probation Board for six years, served on the national Offending Behaviour Programme Board and was a lay inspector looking into the effectiveness of community sentences.

In Reading, he served for three years as a member of the board of visitors of Reading Remand Centre and Young Offenders’ Institution.

In business, he was ethnic minority chairman and a member of the main board of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce.

He is still an executive board member of RCRE as it merges to become a new broader equalities body and was three years its chairman.

He work for 24 years in the private sector as production manager in an electronics company and also ran his own travel business.

He said the high cost of standing as PCC, with a deposit of £5,000, discourages independent candidates who have to make their case without any party machinery to help.

Although against the principle of an elected police chief, he decided it was important to stand in a bid to keep the role apolitical.

He said: “I promise to keep politics out of policing. I will focus on those crimes of most concern to the communities and I promise to cut crime and catch criminals and put victims at the heart of policing and criminal justice.”

Promising to maintain victim support services in the Thames Valley, he said he would roll out restorative justice across the region based on the pilot scheme currently running in High Wycombe.

And he promised to establish area policing boards to understand the changing needs of communities.

Mr Juna was born in Pakistan where his father and many members of his family were in the police force.

He came to this country in 1980 and is a grandfather and married with two grown-up children.

The Thames Valley is fielding seven prospective candidates so far, according to the Police Crime Commissioner website. Hustings take place today in the King’s Room, The Warehouse, Cumberland Road, Newtown, at 7.30pm. Entry is £2.

Site navigation

• Home
• News
• Business
• Sport
• Entertainment
• Lifestyle
• Jobs
• Property
• Motoring
• Classifieds