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New £140m policing college ‘could be used by the FBI’

Wednesday, 4 January 2012

The new policing college at Desertcreat could be used by the FBI and other law-enforcement agenices. sc41130

A NEW £140 million policing college which is due to be constructed at Desertcreat later this year could be used as a training camp for the FBI, it has been revealed.
Deputy Chief Constable Judith Gillespie has also revealed that 61 private developers have expressed interest in bidding for the tender to build the police, fire and prison services college, a process which is expected to take 18 months to complete and will employ around 1,500 construction workers.
Just last week the Courier exclusively reported that Mid-Ulster MLA Patsy McGlone had secured a commitment from the Justice Minister to look at "developing social clauses for the employment of apprentices or unemployed people and at the options for local procurement" for the benefit of the local community.
Deputy Chief Constable Gillespie, who chairs the college's programme board, said the facilities at the state-of-the-art, 250-acre site are to be world class.
She said that the FBI and other international law-enforcement agencies were interested in using the facilities for anti-terrorism and public order training.
She explained: "There are all sorts of opportunities opening up for us to have residential training for national and international colleagues, not just in policing but fire and rescue and prison as well.
“This will be a truly unique, state-of-the-art, best-in-class facility. The FBI are already expressing an interest, our colleagues in An Garda Siochana and the rest of the UK".
“There is the FBI academy in Quantico in Virginia but we have huge experience here and it's often been the case where we've sent people to America to learn about policing techniques only to discover that we know as much if not more than the Americans," continued the Deputy Chief Constable.
She added: "And I think we have a real product to sell here, not just on counter-terrorism and our experience here over the last 30-40 years but also policing public order on a human rights-compliant way.
“We have human rights at the centre of everything we do here and I think we have a very strong message to give to international colleagues."
Construction work on the multi-million pound project is scheduled to get underway in October 2012 for completion in 2015.
It will incorporate huge outdoor and indoor training facilities, including a mock-up prison, fire station and urban town streets.
There will also be a specially made lake to simulate maritime emergencies and a search and rescue facility will have part of a ship's hull built into its roof to allow air lifts to be practised.
Illustrating the enormity of the project, Deputy Chief Constable Gillespie said: "This is a big deal. A big public sector construction project - one of the few in town at the moment - so there's a huge amount of interest in it."

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