Cash-strapped West Midlands Police have spent £10,000 to send five officers on ‘fact-finding’ trip to Australia
Angry local taxpayers blasted the Commonwealth Games trip
A cash-strapped police force spent £10,000 to send its chief constable and four other officers on a "fact-finding" trip to the Commonwealth Games in Australia.
West Midlands Police chief Dave Thompson and his team spent three weeks in Queensland picking up tips on how to police the 2022 games in Birmingham.
Mr Thompson tweeted regular updates from the Gold Coast including one from the sun-drenched beach volleyball venue at Coolangotta.
The force has lost £145m in funding since 2010 and has lost almost 2,300 officers in the same period.
Recorded crime in the region soared by 14 per cent last year. Local residents criticised the "jolly" on social media.
Chris Macdonald tweeted: “Wot was the cost? You keep saying that the budget isn’t big enough yet the force spend thousands on a jolly boys outing.”
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Polly Goodwin said: "You won’t copy the security they have, because there won’t be enough money.
"You do everything on the cheap in this country, apart from your holiday to Oz - how much did that cost the tax-payer.”
Mr Thompson defended the trip saying: "The learning has been very useful.
This is a huge event for Brum and there is much to learn. I’m happy that the benefit is worth the cost."
The force said in a statement that the officers flew economy class and were "part of a wider delegation of organisations from the region who are picking up invaluable lessons from the Australian event."
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