Tarique Ghaffur

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Tarique Ghaffur CBE QPM (IPA: [tʌɹiːk ɡæfuːɹ])^[1] is a high-ranking British police officer in London's Metropolitan Police Service. He is currently Assistant Commissioner–Central Operations.

Born in Uganda to Pakistani parents in 1958, Ghaffur and his family emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1972, after President Idi Amin forcibly expelled most of the country's minority South Asian population.

Two years later, in 1974, Ghaffur joined the newly-formed Greater Manchester Police where he worked in uniform and as a CID detective. Being one of only two police officers from an ethnic background out of a force of over 6,000, Ghaffur recalled that the desk sergeant on his first day with the police refused him admission to the station as he did not believe he was a police officer.^[2]

Ghaffur rose consistently through the ranks at the GMP, reaching the rank of Superintendent and transferring to Leicestershire Constabulary in 1989. After reaching the rank of Deputy Chief Constable at Leicestershire, he transferred to the Metropolitan Police Service in 1999 as a Deputy Assistant Commissioner, and in 2000 served as Borough Commander of the City of Westminster.

In 2001, he was promoted to Assistant Commissioner, and since then has headed three of the Metropolitan Police's Operational Command Units: the Directorate of Performance, Review and Standards in 2001; the Specialist Crime Directorate from November 2002; and Central Operations from 2006.

As the UK's highest-ranking Asian Muslim police officer, he often comments on racism in the police service, and has spoken out on discrimination against Muslims as a factor in radical Islam.^[3]