Simon Foy was born in London in 1960. In 1966 his family moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. He went to school at St. Davids Marist College, passing his Matriculation in1977.
In 1978 he returned to England, and after gaining his A levels at Monmouth School in Wales, in 1979 he went to Queen Mary College, University of London to study law. He graduated in 1982.
He joined the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in 1982 under the Graduate Entry Scheme, designed to “fast track” and promote graduates.
He served initially as a Constable in Shepherds Bush, West London working in both uniform and on plain clothes investigations. He was promoted through the ranks, working at various locations in South West London.
During his career he has worked as a senior detective leading both murder and child abuse investigation teams in South London. As a Chief Superintendent he was the police commander of Brixton, Lambeth for three years, an inner city location, which has the highest crime levels in the United Kingdom. He worked for two and a half years as the staff officer to the previous Commissioner - Sir John Stevens.
He attended the strategic command course at the Police Staff College Bramshill in 2003 and was promoted to the rank of Commander that year.
His first posting in that rank was to lead the seven Boroughs in South West London and have overall charge of the performance management system for the Territorial Business Group of the MPS – which provides policing across all 32 Boroughs in London.
He then ran MPS Performance Directorate, which is responsible for monitoring the performance of the entire organisation – as well as being the professional point of contact on performance issues with the Home Office, Greater London Assembly and the Metropolitan Police Authority.
In 2007 he was appointed as Commander of the Metropolitan Police Central Communications Command (CCC). This is the largest single emergency command and control unit in the world. It has responsibility for all command and control systems and call handling in London, as well as overall responsibility for control of all public order events in London – one of the largest and most widely visited cities in the world.
The creation of this command is the culmination of the largest single change programme in the history of the Metropolitan Police Service. It represents an investment of almost £½ billion.
In 1995 he wrote the very first comprehensive drug strategy for the MPS. In 1998 he wrote the first national guidelines for dealing with Sex Offenders in the Community, in response to the first Sex Offenders Act.
He has dealt with a number of high profile incidents in his career including the London nail bombings and the investigation into the activities of the Cabinet Minister Ron Davies. He recently designed the MPS initiative to deal with Knife Crime known as `Operation Blunt`.
He currently has responsibility to design and implement training for his ACPO colleagues in the MPS for their responsibilities as DSO’s (Designated Senior Officer) for the much-publicised KRATOS policy. This is a tactic put in place to enable a decision to be taken to exercise the ultimate force against someone who is a suspected suicide bomber. He performed the role of DSO during the period of the London July Bombings in 2005 and led the MPS Community engagement strategy for the events of Operation OVERT in the summer of 2006.
On Behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) he is responsible for the national contact management strategy in England and Wales. He is currently the lead for the implementation and support to CCTV (Close Circuit Television) across the whole of London.
Simon Foy is 47 years old and lives with his family (5 children) in Windsor, Berkshire. He remains an enthusiastic (if somewhat ineffective) footballer and enjoys rugby and cricket. He is Vice President of the Metropolitan Police Cricket Club.
