SgtTCS (Neil Dewson-Smyth) is a UK police officer who has worked in uniform operations for 27 years. The first part of his career was with Greater Manchester Police. In the first 7 years of his career he covered all aspects of day to day policing. He then progressed to traffic operations for 7 years as a class 1 advanced driver dealing with road traffic crashes and numerous fatal road traffic collision investigations.

On transfer to Cheshire he spent 12 months in the custody investigation team before promotion to Sgt. He then spent 7 years as custody sergeant at the newly opened 35 cell suite at Middlewich. Neil continued to expand his road safety skills whilst in custody and became a qualified intoximeter EC/IR specialist and trainer.

He now works as a Force Incident Sgt in the force control room. His role requires oversight of the whole force, overseeing all emergency and priority incidents and matching resources to demand whilst maintaining officer safety and public confidence.

He is a well regarded social media advisor especially around policing operations and road safety issues. He has worked closely with  Cheshire Constabulary as an engagement lead but also nationally and internationally with other forces and police agencies. He thrives on helping officers, leaders and staff remove the barriers to effective use of social media helping them to maximise their potential to reach out to and build relationships with their communities digitally through varied media applications and platforms.

He is an independent social media consultant to police forces/agencies worldwide and public, private and voluntary sectors and is passionate about road safety. He regularly speaks at social media and digital communication conferences and is available for private engagements. Please contact him for a preliminary discussion if you think he can help you.

He has a strong passion for the dangers of distracted driving with particular emphasis on the use of mobile phones. He is the creator of the internationally recognised #DontStreamAndDrive campaign and continually campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers.

In April 2017 Neil travelled to the the annual SMILE conference in Los Angeles where he won the International Leadership Award for his use of social media to promote and progress the #DontStreamAndDrive campaign.