By Detective Chief Inspector Jonathan Wright

I have been Detective Chief Inspector for Child Protection, Adult Support & Protection and Concern Hub for the Lothians and Scottish Borders since July 2024.

During my 21 years in the police, I have worked within various roles in the public protection and criminal investigation arena within Edinburgh and the East of Scotland.

Prior to transfer to my current role, I retained national responsibility for the harm prevention portfolio within our Partnerships, Prevention and Community Wellbeing Division.

Within my current role, I retain management oversight of policing response to all matters of concern in respect of child protection and adult support and protection within Lothians and Scottish Borders Division, ensuring effectiveness within investigations and supporting the safeguarding of everyone within our communities.

I hold additional responsibility for management of our Divisional Concern Hub, who triage concern reports submitted by police officers from those that they encounter in our communities, identify areas of risk and work with partners to seek to mitigate that risk and implement appropriate safeguarding measures.

A substantial portion of our work is reactive, as we respond to reports of offences that have been committed against individuals, either recently, or in the past.

In these instances, our specially-trained detectives work closely with a range of other agencies to both support victims during what is likely to be one of the most distressing points of their life, and to ensure a thorough and robust investigation is conducted to identify perpetrators and bring them to justice.

However, equally important to the work of public protection is exploring opportunities where we can attempt to deter offences occurring, or prevent further offending through behaviour changing campaigns, where we communicate to the public the negative impact certain attitudes can have on our wider communities, or by outlining the criminal ramifications of continuing with criminal offending.

Recently, we also worked alongside local policing teams from Lothians and Scottish Borders Division and Policing Together Division to provide relevant safety advice to students, either commencing, or returning to their university or college studies, at Freshers events.

During this time, we engaged with the students in attendance and promoted the Ask for Angela campaign, that encourages women who are within a licensed premises and find themselves being harassed to seek help from bar staff by ‘asking for Angela’.

At this time, the staff can take appropriate action to remove the individual responsible from the venue.

We are also aware that for many students, their time in university or college may be the first time they enter into an adult relationship and that’s why it’s very important we highlight the tell-tale signs of domestic abuse and coercive behaviour so that they can identify any such traits within their own relationships, or the relationships of their friends, and seek appropriate support.

I am hugely passionate in keeping our communities safe and have always believed that partnership and listening to our communities is the key to ensuring the wellbeing of all.

I would actively encourage any feedback or reports to be made with the knowledge of commitment from myself and my colleagues to ensure the upmost professionalism and dedication to provide a quality of service which you should all expect and deserve.