Neville Blackwood is a former senior UK police officer with most of his 30yrs service spent as a Detective investigating and managing serious organised crime and major crime incidents. He has a Diploma in European Policing and an MSc in International Policing.

The last 3 years of his police career was on secondment as Detective Superintendent Police Adviser to the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London. There he played a pivotal role in cross-government decision making with international partners particularly in highly sensitive areas such as murder and kidnap as well as the UK response to worldwide crisis incidents such as terrorism, natural disasters and major accidents involving British nationals.

He is an experienced police Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) and regularly deliver training to senior police officers on all matters concerning international law enforcement. He is currently the lead trainer for the College of Policing SIO (homicide, rape, terrorism and serious and organised crime) Development Programme for leaders from the police, Counter Terrorism command and National Crime Agency.

He has extensive experience working overseas academically and on diplomatic missions through the Foreign Office. He has visited over 50 countries across Europe, Africa, the US, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and South Asia where he has project managed a number of capacity and capability programmes and worked directly with police teams, prosecutors, political representatives, NGOs and other key law enforcement partners.

Mr. Blackwood has led on many projects designing and delivering crime investigation, counter terrorism and Gender Based Violence courses to police in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and Namibia.

He has worked as the police adviser to the British Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia and provided extensive training and mentoring to the Somali Police Counter Terrorism Unit. He has worked on behalf of the Counter Terrorist Liaison Officer at the British Embassy in Rabat, Morocco and designed and delivered SIO courses for the police and security services there.

Mr. Blackwood is Deployable Civilian Expert for DFID and have delivered training on the investigation of mass rape in war zones to healthcare workers on the border with Syria. He has also worked for UNICEF in Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan training and mentoring monitors interviewing Syrian refugees around grave violations of human rights and law enforcement regarding crime investigations relating to children.

In 2019 he worked in Pakistan as an international adviser to the Police in the Punjab region giving specialist support around major crime investigations and is currently working as the lead trainer for a Counter Terrorism project in Baghdad, Iraq.
Since 2018 he has been a member of a project team from the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights leading a capacity-building framework, ‘Strengthening the Fight Against Illicit Trade in South Eastern Europe’. During the course of 2019 together with the team he is ran National Strategic Dialogues with police, customs and prosecutors in 7 countries across this region.