Thames Valley Police officer receives Coronation Champion Award

A Thames Valley Police officer was honoured to receive a Coronation Champion Award from Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla for his outstanding contribution to voluntary service.

PC David Smith, of the Joint Operations Roads Policing Unit, based at Milton Keynes police station, was one of 500 people to be given the award from the Royal Voluntary Service as part of the Coronation celebrations.

“When I received the email to say that I was a winner of the Coronation awards, I was surprised and honoured to have been one of the 500 recipients out of 5,000 nominations," he said.

“I have been volunteering for 10 years in the community and I still enjoy it.”

The Coronation Champion Awards celebrate extraordinary volunteers across the country who have been contributing to their communities.

PC Smith has been a police officer for over 20 years in Milton Keynes, starting in the incident and response team before moving into neighbourhood poling.

In January, he joined the roads policing team at Milton Keynes.

Outside of work, PC Smith is the scheme co-ordinator for South Northants Community Responders, which assists East Midlands Ambulance Service.

He has been involved with the charity for 10 years, coordinating and managing the administration to deploy 45 volunteer responders, as well as being a responder himself.

The team was also selected as the first volunteers to assist in the Covid vaccination rollout at Northampton General Hospital.

Chief Inspector Chris Spellerberg, of the Joint Operations Roads Policing Unit, said: “As you would expect from PC Smith, who goes above and beyond, he is humble in his achievements but his work ethic is fantastic.

“PC Smith is very modest about it all, but I think it’s a fantastic achievement to be recognised in such a way.”

Along with the award certificate and pin badge, PC Smith also received an invite to the Coronation Concert at Windsor Castle on 7 May, which he attended with his wife, Emma.

Congratulations to PC Smith from everyone at Thames Valley Police!

JD