Criminal Exploitation in Scotland Digital Conference

Niall is an associate professor of criminology at the University of Stirling, a member of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, and an Associate Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. .  He arrived in Stirling in 2007, having previously worked in government, primarily conducting policing research, notably focussing on organised immigration crime. Subsequently Niall has worked on a wide range of policing projects in Scotland including research on policing marches and parades, police custody referral projects, the policing of football, work around organised crime intelligence, and a key study on the community impact of organised crime. He is also increasingly involved in research looking at the intersection of climate change, crime and security risks.

Niall has been fortunate to supervise a substantial number of doctoral projects relating to human trafficking, ranging from source country studies (spanning Central America, West Africa and Asia), as well as UK-based projects that have focussed on various aspects of intelligence and the identification of potential victims.

Laura has been a prosecutor for over 20 years joining COPFS as a trainee in 2002. Laura spent a number of years prosecuting in the courts in Aberdeen before joining the Lockerbie Team in Crown Office.
In 2010 Laura took up national roles as Head of the Proceeds of Crime Unit then Head of the Economic Crime Unit becoming Deputy Head of the Serious and Organised Crime Division in 2015. Laura had oversight and direction of large scale financial, serious organised crime and counter terrorism investigations and prosecutions.

Between 2018 and 2022 Laura was Procurator Fiscal for Lothian and Borders with responsibility for all local summary and jury prosecutions in that Sheriffdom. In February 2022 Laura was appointed Procurator Fiscal, Specialist Casework and was responsible for ten national teams including the Serious and Organised Crime Division, Proceeds of Crime Unit and International Co-operation Unit. In April 2023 Laura moved to take on the role of Procurator Fiscal, Policy and Engagement.

Stevie has been a police officer for 24 years starting his career in Strathclyde Police, before transferring to Lothian and Borders and thereafter Police Scotland when it amalgamated the 8 legacy police forces in 2013.

Stevie has spent the majority of his service working within the CID. In 2015 he was promoted to Detective Inspector where he was worked as Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) in several major investigations, which included one of Police Scotland’s first human trafficking investigations that led to 4 members of a serious and organised crime group being convicted and imprisoned.

In 2017, Stevie moved from CID into a Public Protection role, where he worked on the most complex child protection and child death investigations across Scotland. In 2020, he was promoted to DCI within the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit.

In 2022, Stevie transferred as DCI to the Scottish Crime Campus as deputy head to oversee Rape and Sexual Crime, Human Trafficking and Prostitution. In May the following year, he took over as Detective Superintendent which is his current role.

Assistant Chief Constable Andy Freeburn is the executive lead for Organised Crime, Counter Terrorism and Intelligence.

ACC Freeburn’s portfolio consists of the following business areas:

• Organised Crime
• Counter Terrorism
• Border Policing
• Intelligence Support
• Specialist Crime Support including International Unit
• Cyber Crime and Digital Forensics
• ANPR

He is also the Senior Responsible Officer for Technical Surveillance and Policing in a Digital World Programme which aims to transform how Police Scotland responds to the evolving threat of cybercrime.​  The programme will enable us to continue keeping Scotland’s people, communities, businesses, and assets safe in both the physical and virtual world.

A​CC Freeburn has 30 years’ experience of policing in Northern Ireland. He was Chief Superintendent and District Commander for Belfast and is an experienced Public Order and Firearms Commander. He is a former Detective Chief Superintendent in Crime Operations where he led significant crime and intelligence operations. During his time at the Police Service of Northern Ireland, ACC Freeburn contributed to shaping Police Scotland’s ethics and values.

He was awarded an MBE in 2020 for services to policing and the community and​ joined Police Scotland in February 2022.

Des Murray carved out a career in local government after starting a Youth Training Scheme (YTS) as a school leaver a long, long time ago.

Starting with Strathclyde Region, Finance and then Building & Works, before joining the newly formed South Lanarkshire Council, and then working around the UK in a range of roles, Des eventually made it home to North Lanarkshire Council, where he has always lived, in 2011 as a senior officer in housing property.

As Scotland’s largest local authority landlord and as Head of Housing Property, he was responsible for a portfolio of 36,500 properties with a combined capital and revenue budget in excess of £100million per year.

After a period as Assistance Chief Executive of Enterprise and Housing Resources, he was named Chief Executive of North Lanarkshire Council in June 2018.

Des is also Vice Chair of the Scottish branch of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) where he has a key role in discussing the current and future role of councils to deliver vital services to communities across the country.  The council works closely with partners including Police Scotland, SEPA, HMRC and other agencies to tackle criminal networks operating locally and often behind seemingly legitimate businesses. This includes tackling human trafficking, drug dealing, cyber-crime as well as those engaged in doorstep crime. The council has set up a number of No Cold Calling Zones at sheltered housing complexes this year that have been identified as doorstep crime hotspots. It has installed 115 TrueCall units to protect vulnerable residents from nuisance and scam phone calls and it’s working with Police Scotland and the council’s trading standards team to crack down on illicit products being sold to unwitting residents.

Cited as one of Scotland’s fastest growing economies, North Lanarkshire is currently seeing around £3.5bn public investment being made over the next 10 years to help create over 12,000 new jobs, and generate close to £1bn for the local economy.

Melissa Hamilton is a Professor of Law & Criminal Justice at the University of Surrey School of Law and a Surrey AI Fellow with the Surrey Institute for People-Centred Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Hamilton holds memberships in the American Psychological Society, Royal Statistical Society, Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, International Corrections and Prisons Association, and the State Bar of Texas. She holds a Juris Doctorate (law) and a PhD (Criminology and Criminal Justice) from The University of Texas at Austin. Research interests include issues related to risk assessment practices, domestic and sexual abuse, trauma responses in victims of assault, policing, sentencing, and corrections. Prior to academia, Hamilton served as a police officer, corrections officer, and judicial law clerk.

Dr Ian Belton is a Research Associate at the University of Strathclyde. He holds a PhD from Middlesex University and an MA and MPhil from the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on the psychology of human decision-making, with a particular focus on the empirical study of criminal sentencing judgments, as well as decision-making in other organisational contexts such as the corporate, defence and security sectors. He has published a number of articles on sentencing and expert judgment in peer-reviewed journals and has also recently co-authored reports for both the Scottish Sentencing Council and the Sentencing Council of England and Wales. Before becoming an academic, Ian worked as a solicitor specialising in commercial litigation.

Helen was a police officer for 30 years. She started her career at Grampian Police and then Police Scotland, retiring from policing in February 2022.

Helen spent the majority of her career in investigative roles, and has been involved in the investigation of County Lines for over 20 years.

In her latter role as a Detective Inspector, she was responsible for coordinating the national response to County Lines for Police Scotland. This requires a high degree of collaboration with partners, understanding the threats, appropriate information sharing and responding to the complexities of the County Lines business model.

In January 2023, Helen took up her current role as Police Scotland’s National County Lines Coordinator and is based in Aberdeen.