Around 200 of North Down’s leading business men and women supported the Bangor Rotary Club Charity Breakfast held at the Clandeboye Lodge Hotel.
Proceeds from the event will support the work of the MS Society and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy along with Rotary Foundation.
The Guest of Honour was Clr Richard Smart, May of Ards and North Down who opened the proceedings.
The Keynote Speaker at the Breakfast was James Gamble, QPM, who was a senior British Police officer from Bangor in County Down, Northern Ireland.[1] He is the former chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), a police unit affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in the United Kingdom. He resigned in October 2010 after the Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision to merge CEOP with SOCA and other bodies into a new National Crime Agency. Mr Gamble wanted CEOP to remain independent.
Earlier in his career he was head of the Northern Ireland anti-terrorist intelligence unit in Belfast, then Deputy Director General (with the rank of Deputy Chief Constable) of the National Crime Squad, which in April 2006, merged into the Serious Organised Crime Agency. He was also the head of the Belfast Region of the RUC’s Special Branch.
Gamble led the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) fight against child sex abuse. He also presided over Operation Ore.[citation needed] He led the work to set up the National Crime Squad’s specialist response cell – the Paedophile and Online Investigation Team (POLIT). He was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal (QPM) in the New Year Honours 2008.
Gamble was among six candidates shortlisted to succeed Sir Hugh Orde as Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable. The post was vacated by Orde in late 2009.[1] Also in the running were Bernard Hogan-Howe, then chief constable of Merseyside; Jon Stoddart, chief constable of Durham; Paul West, chief constable of West Mercia; and Matt Baggott, chief constable of Leicestershire who was the successful candidate.[1]
Jim is the CEO and one of the founding partners of Ineqe Group, where he has continued in his dedication to protecting the welfare of children and helping to make people safer.
He is a frequent media commentator on issues related to protective services, best practice, the internet and child protection. Ineqe Group Media
Most recently he has been appointed as the Independent Chair (Designate) of the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Board and took up the post on the 1st April 2013. In September 2016 the City & Hackney Local Safeguarding Children Board became the first in the country to receive an ‘outstanding’ judgement, following an Ofsted inspection.