CHIEF Superintendent Dave Mallaby has become the new police commander for the Eastern Division, covering Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley.

Ian Singleton asked him to outline his vision for the future...

DAVE Mallaby walked with a limp as he headed up three flights of stairs to his new chief superintendent's office.

"I shouldn't have run the London Marathon this year," he said, "I had a groin strain and I've made it worse."

Even with the injury he completed all 26 miles and 385 yards in four hours, some 20 minutes slower than his personal best.

It was the sixth time he had run the race and he is a keen member of the Accrington Road Runners.

As we talked more about his interests, it turned out he loves riding around the Ribble Valley on his Yamaha FJR1300, as well as the more serene pursuit of scuba diving.

For a man who has just been promoted to one step below the assistant chief constable, these hobbies will provide vital escapism from an immensely demanding job.

He admits it will be tough to improve on the work of his predecessor, John Thompson, who retired in April.

The division is in healthy shape, with crime down three per cent last year, a new £7 million headquarters in Whitebirk open for business and the community beat programme being boosted by 17 extra officers in the coming year.

In addition, national problems such as gun crime are not particularly prevalent in the area.

The division has also avoided the race relations problems that exploded in Burnley during the summer of 2001.

Mr Mallaby stressed that while there will be no complacency on these issues, he is focusing on community policing. And having been Mr Thompson's deputy for the past three years, he has already used his knowledge of the division to quickly identify how he will do this.

He said: "For me it is about engaging with the community and making sure we are available.

"The biggest challenge will be public reassurance in terms of continuing to build on the confidence we have already got.

"One of the things I will be doing early on is reviewing the opening hours of stations."

This is a subject close to people's hearts after the decision to close them 18 months ago, prompted by a bid to get more officers from behind desks and out tackling crime.

Supt Mallaby said: "I want to make officers, particularly the community beat managers, more available to local residents.

"One of the ways of doing this would be to give community beat managers mobile phones so residents can contact them quickly. I also want more officers on the ground.

"It is something the public have said for many years that they want some continuity with people working in their area so they can identify with local officers.

"It is my intention that officers who have the important role of community beat managers stay in that role for a significant period of time."

Mr Mallaby, who lives in Hyndburn and is married with a teenage daughter, also pinpointed other areas to improve the division.

He revealed: "We have been improving the quality of our services to victims of crime and that is starting to bring good results. But there is a lot more we can do.

"We must do this without out taking our eyes off the ball in terms of arresting people.

"We are a law enforcement agency and we must arrest and bring before the courts those people who offend.

"What we want to do is make sure the quality of our work in terms of arrests and the whole process right through to conviction is such that we don't lose convictions we should be obtaining."

He also revealed that the crime-fighting techniques of targeting the most prolific offenders would continue to be developed.

Eastern Division police now draw up a rolling top 20 of their most prolific offenders and target them by patrolling the areas where they live and making checks on them.

Mr Mallaby said: "We are getting a lot smarter at identifying prolific offenders and the multi-agency work that we can do to target these offenders.

"This is something we have started to publicise more, but we are doing more of it.

"We try to refer the people we target through rehabilitation schemes to reduce the risk of re-offending."

He also said that he expected officers to have the highest standards in their dress code, such as wearing hats in public at all times, to reinforce "the visible signs of profession- alism".

Mr Mallaby added: "The public rightly expect to be treated fairly and courteously by the police and it is important that we meet those expectations."

Mr Mallaby was brought up in the East Park Road area of Blackburn, has lived within the Eastern Division borders all his life and is a big Rovers fan.

Aged just 44, Mr Mallaby surely has scope for further promotion, but he refuses to be drawn on whether he would want to progress to assistant chief constable level.

At the moment, however, he is focusing on the challenge of commanding his home patch -- and shaving a few minutes off his best marathon time!