The Head of Suicide Prevention at British Transport Police (BTP) has been honoured in the Queen’s birthday honours list.
Mark Smith, 53, has been given an MBE for his impact on UK policing. Chief Constable Paul Crowther said: “It gives me enormous pleasure to congratulate Mark on his award which is richly deserved given his outstanding service with BTP. He is a huge credit to the force and the police service as a whole.”
Mark, who lives in Colchester, joined the force in 1981 before retiring in the rank of Chief Superintendent in 2013. As a senior investigator he had responsibility for the investigation into the Ladbroke Grove train crash (1999) where 31 people died and more than 400 people were injured. He also led the investigation into the Potters Bar train crash (2002) where seven people died.
He became the national police lead for corporate manslaughter and worked with the Government to develop new corporate manslaughter laws. He’s sat on a number of multi-agency partnership arrangements including the national crisis care concordat for mental health. He said: “As a team, we’re working to make real changes to improving how we help those in crisis and help prevent suicides on our railways.” Visit www.btp.police.uk.
