Dr Alan Billings re-elected as South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

Dr Alan Billings has been re-elected as South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner.
Dr Alan BillingsDr Alan Billings
Dr Alan Billings

Labour candidate Dr Billings received 144,978 votes, giving him more than 50 per cent of the first preference in the count at Barnsley Metrodome yesterday.

Dr Billings kept the role despite a series of controversies over Hillsborough Disaster, the Rotherham child abuse scandal and calls for an inquiry into the so-called Battle of Orgreave.

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David Stewart Allen, of the English Democrats, received 19,144 votes, Gavin Felton, of UKIP, received 57,062 votes, Joe Otten, of Liberal Democrats, received 28,060 votes and Ian Walker, of Conservatives, received 29,904 votes.

Dr Billings, a former parish priest and was deputy leader of Sheffield City Council in the 1980s, said it was his aim to make South Yorkshire Police an ‘exemplary’ force over the next four years.

He said: “Whatever these issues are, we have to face them, understand them, understand what the lessons are to be learned and take it forward from there.”

Dr Billings won a by-election to become crime commissioner in 2014 following the resignation of the county’s first commissioner, Shaun Wright, amid the Rotherham child scandal. He was on the shortlist to be Labour’s candidate for the PCC post in 2012 but Mr Wright was chosen ahead of him.

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In Sheffield 133,772 votes were cast in the crime commissioner elections, which is 34.4 per cent of the 388,850 electorate. In Doncaster 43,915 votes were cast, which is 20.14 per cent of the electorate. In Rotherham 64,267 votes were cast, which is 32.64 per cent of the electorate. In Barnsley 44,804 votes were cast, which is 26.64 per cent of the electorate.

There were 9,724 spoiled ballots.