Conservative wins police and crime commissioner election re-run

Mr Wilkinson polled 37,752 to come in first, former police officer Mr Rees took 34,815.

Because none of the candidates won more than 50 per cent of the total votes cast second preference votes were counted.

Labour’s Junab Ali took 12,971, Brian Mathew of the Liberal Democrats won 17,966 and Julian Malins of Reform UK took 1,859.

The election had to re-staged after it was revealed former Tory candidate Jonathon Seed had a historic drink-drive conviction.

After the controversy Mr Wilkinson said he would distinguish himself by bringing his unique expertise to the role.

“For the last 20 years I’ve been working for other government departments making my country and my community safer,” he said. “I think that makes me stand alone from Jonathon Seed.”

Next week he will meet Chief Constable Kier Pritchard to discuss his policing plan. He said his key priorities will be drug abuse, county lines, rural issues, speeding and anti-social behaviour, as well as victim support.

“Obviously I am very happy and I realise I am in a privileged position and that this is a huge opportunity to bring my experience.

“I’m excited by the extent of the challenge, which I know will be huge and that’s why it will have my full attention.”

Currently Wiltshire Police is not fully manned. According to the briefing the chief constable gave me, we are 57 uniformed officers and 40 civilian support staff under establishment.”

He suggested a change in recruitment priority to address the critical issue of numbers.  I’ve already spoken to the police minister in terms of how many police Wiltshire is likely to get from the 20,000, and realistically I want at least 150.

"If we recruit to establishment and we get that 150, that’s a 20 per cent increase in the number of uniformed officers we can put on the streets.”

Mr Rees said he was proud of achieving second place and thanked those who had voted for a non-political candidate.  “What I had behind me was the people of Wiltshire. I had around 400 volunteers out all over the county delivering leaflets and we made the Conservative party sweat,” he said.  “We came very, very close. I’ll always be grateful to the people who backed me and I hope I’ve done them proud.”

Turnout was 16.63 per cent and a total of 91,533 votes were cast in total.

Following the count Terence Herbert, police area returning officer for Wiltshire paid tribute to his staff: “It has been a busy few months preparing for this unexpected election, and I’d like to thank my team and everyone who provided support for tackling every challenge that came their way with professionalism, commitment, hard work and good humour.”