Local Command Unit Commanders

Chief Superintendent Steve Raffield

LCU Commander – Berkshire East

Chief Superintendent Raffield has worked across many commands in his time at Thames Valley Police. He started in Bracknell over 30 years ago though spent the majority of his service as a detective working in Oxford, Cherwell and finally in Milton Keynes as the Crime Manager. He was delighted to return to local policing as the Reading LPA Commander, a role which has informed his approach to leading Berkshire East.

In other portfolio areas, he is also the force lead for Operation Bridger, which works to ensure the safety and security of Members of Parliament and he is also the Local Policing lead for improving the solved crime rates.

Chief Superintendent Felicity Parker

LCU Commander – Berkshire West

Chief Superintendent Parker joined Thames Valley Police in 2003 and gained the majority of her frontline experience in Oxford City as a neighbourhood officer and detective. Felicity has spent significant time working in public protection, particularly focussing on domestic abuse, offender management and working in partnership to improve safeguarding.  Felicity is currently the force lead for adults at risk of crime, to reduce their vulnerability to crime and hold offenders to account.

Felicity is an experience public order public safety commander, having led the police response to Reading Festival in 2023 and 2024. In July 2024, Felicity was the silver commander for the European Political Community Summit at Blenheim Palace, working with government agencies to ensure the safety of 47 European leaders. 

Felicity is passionate about public service, working with all our partners to ensure people feel safe in their communities and have trust and confidence in Thames Valley Police.

Chief Superintendent Emma Burroughs

LCU Commander – Buckinghamshire

Chief Superintendent Burroughs joined Thames Valley Police in 1996, starting out as a PC in High Wycombe and was then promoted to Sergeant in the area.

Since then, she has worked her way through the ranks in a range of roles across response, neighbourhood and investigation teams. In 2016 she became the Deputy LPA Commander for Reading and following that, spent 18 months within the Force Intelligence and Specialist Operations team. She then returned to Wycombe as the LPA Commander in 2020, before becoming LPA Commander of South Buckinghamshire in 2022 and then overseeing the creation of the Buckinghamshire Local Command Unit in April 2024.

Chief Superintendent Emma Baillie

LCU Commander – Milton Keynes

Chief Superintendent Emma Baillie stepped into the role of Commander for Milton Keynes in April 2023. She has a wealth of experience having worked in roles spanning response policing, intelligence development and commanding large incidents and operations, including the force response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Emma previously worked as the lead for Thames Valley Police in the national Uplift programme, helping to recruit over 600 additional officers and also held responsibility for the allocation of officers and staff across the force area and their training. Before this, Emma was Head of the Armed Response department spanning the Thames Valley and Hampshire areas.

Chief Superintendent Ben Clark

LCU Commander - Oxfordshire

Chief Superintendent Ben Clark joined Thames Valley Police in January 2024 having spent 24 years in the Metropolitan Police Service. He has served in a variety of roles during his career, including the Territorial Support Group and in a number of local policing commands across London.

He is a strong supporter of evidence-based policing – working with the College of Policing to trial the police use of body-worn video, for which he received a European Public Sector excellence award. He has also trialled methods of improving the experience for crime victims, presenting results back nationally via the UK society of evidence-based policing conference.

Chief Superintendent Clark was the local policing resilience lead across London during the COVID19 pandemic; responsible for maintaining core police services continued to be delivered during the lockdown period. Following that, he transferred to the Royalty & Specialist Protection Command where he was involved in protection operations at the Late Queen’s funeral, the Coronation and leading the protection of VIP delegates at the recent Global Artificial Intelligence Summit in Bletchley Park.