Brian Moore, Wiltshire’s admired Chief Constable, is stepping down from the urgent post he was given in February to sort out the immigrations problems of the government’s Border Force Agency.
He was seconded from his Devizes-based post following the scandal over the lack of immigration controls at Heathrow highlighted when the Home Secretary Theresa May suspended Brodie Clark, the senior civil servant in charge of the Border Force.
Some 500,000 people were said to have been allowed into the country without security checks being made and there was rising concern to sort out immigration controls in time for the influx of thousands of visitors for the Olympic Games, due later this month.
Now Mr Moore is to step down from the post at the end of September after being similarly criticised over long delays at airport immigration desks.
His contract with Wiltshire Police is due to expire this December and Mr Moore, who has been Chief Constable since 2008 on a salary of £133,000, had intimated that he would apply for the full-time immigration post.
Now his future is uncertain after an announcement that he wishes to “pursue other options in his policing career”.
His departure has been confirmed by Damian Green, the Immigration Minister, who told the Home Affairs Select Committee: “He has decided to do what he was brought in to do, be the interim head on secondment.”