A new assistant chief constable has been appointed at West Yorkshire Police

Chief Superintendent Tim Kingsman has been appointed Assistant Chief Constable and will take over responsibility for operational support at the force on May 14.

Current ACC Andy Battle is to retire at the end of the month.

Chief Constable Dee Collins said: “I wish ACC Andy Battle all the best for his retirement and I thank him for his service to the communities of West Yorkshire. 

“Tim is an experienced officer who is committed to serving the communities of West Yorkshire and will take over from Andy at a time of heightened operational pressure on our resources. 

“In these very demanding operational times, I was reassured by the high standard and quality of all the applicants for the post of ACC in West Yorkshire Police.  My congratulations go to Tim on his appointment and I look forward to working closely with him on the chief officer team.”

The force also announced Chief Superintendent Mabs Hussain “attained the required standard” and will be appointed ACC when a vacancy arises in the future.

The role was advertised with a salary of £98,538-£111,249 per year.

ACC Kingsman joined West Yorkshire Police in 1990, initially being posted to Keighley before his promotion to sergeant and a move a short distance down the Aire Valley to Eccleshill.

He specialised in search after a move to operations support in 1998, where he held the post as POLSA (police search advisor), taking him to a number of large-scale search operations across the force.

In-house promotion to Inspector followed, before a move to Pudsey Weetwood Division in Leeds, where he worked on both response and neighbourhood teams, before temporary promotion to chief inspector.

The role chief inspector was made permanent with a move to Calderdale, where he managed operations and partnership portfolios.

In 2008 he was promoted to superintendent whilst working in corporate review at police headquarters, before moving to North East Leeds in 2010 as superintendent operations. Most recently, Tim held the post as district commander in Kirklees before returning to lead operations support in the autumn of 2015, with several periods of acting up to ACC.