Christine Jones

Commander Christine Jones QPM (born 1964/1965) is a senior British police officer serving with London's Metropolitan Police Service ("the Met"). As of 2014, she is the Met's senior officer responsible for mental health and for domestic violence; she also the leads the Association of Chief Police Officers' (ACPO) National Mental Health Working Group.

Career In 2008, Jones was in charge of an operation in which Mark Saunders was shot dead by police firearms officers after repeatedly firing a shotgun out of a window; after the inquest into Saunders' death, Jones said "the object of the police was to protect the public and [to] bring Mark Saunders to safety. But we are prepared to take appropriate action to make difficult decisions to protect the public". In April 2011, Jones was responsible for the security operation at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

Jones was appointed to lead the Met on mental health in 2012 upon the retirement of her predecessor. In this role, she has worked to change the way people with mental health problems are treated when they come into contact with the police. Shortly after her appointment, Jones undertook a review of cases involving mental health including deaths in police custody. She concluded that police officers were too often being used for tasks of which they were not trained, such as transporting people detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 to hospital or detention of people in crisis at police stations—a practice she wishes to see become a "never event".