THE new chief constable of North Wales Police has revealed how investigating the horrific triple murder of a young mother and her two children gave him a passion for protecting the victims of domestic violence.

The former Deputy Chief Constable of Merseyside Police and Gulf War veteran Carl Foulkes, revealed this following the confirmation of his appointment by the North Wales Police and Crime Panel last Monday (10 September).

They backed the choice of the region’s police and crime commissioner, Arfon Jones, of Mr Foulkes, 47, as his preferred candidate following a rigorous two-day interview process in early August.

As well as moving to north Wales to live, Mr Foulkes, who is originally from Caergwrle, near Wrexham, has also promised to make it a priority to learn Welsh.

In fact, he has already signed up for an intensive course at the National Welsh Language Centre at the former quarrying village of Nant Gwrtheyrn near Llithfaen during his annual leave in October from his current job as deputy chief constable in Merseyside.

He will take up his new role heading up North Wales Police on Monday, 5 November.

Born at Wrexham Maelor Hospital, Mr Foulkes spent the first few years of his life in Caergwrle before the family moved to Scotland and later to the East Midlands because of his father’s work as an aircraft engineer.

After serving in the Royal Navy and seeing active service in the first Gulf War, he spent 10 years working for British Transport Police before joining West Midlands Police prior to becoming the deputy chief constable of Merseyside Police.

He has national portfolio responsibility for Assisting Offender Debriefing under SOCPA, Open Source Investigations and UK Protected Persons Service (UKPPS).

Mr Foulkes is married with a teenage son and enjoys outdoor pursuits including running, walking and cycling.

He described being appointed as the chief constable of north Wales as the pinnacle of his career and immediately pledged to crack down on serious and organised crime and protect vulnerable people like the victims of domestic violence.

Mr Foulkes said: “I am proud and privileged to be the chief constable of north Wales – I’m not sure many chief officers get the opportunity to be the chief constable in the place that they were born, where their family live, where they genuinely love the area. I’m delighted to be coming back here.

“I am also really excited about the opportunities to make a real difference to the communities of north Wales.

“I want to work with the Police and Crime Commissioner around diverting addicts away from drugs and being more preventative and problem-solving in our approach- and working with partners to be more preventative.

“I want to ensure that our officers have state of the art equipment and technology so we can do things like fingerprinting out on the street and accept dash cam footage and other information via social media.

“I want our officers to operate as effectively on the street and in people’s homes as they do on the internet when they are in a police station.

“I can’t do any of that without the right people so I want to be very clear about how I support them, their wellbeing, their mental health and their physical health.

“We need to make sure we have an organisation that’s fit for the next five years, not just fit for here and now.”

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