The hunt for a new deputy chief constable has been abandoned, the Manx Independent revealed last week.

The Department of Home affairs has confirmed that it will not be interviewing any applicants for the position.

DHA chief executive officer Dan Davies told the Manx Independent that a number of applicants had been considered, but the Chief Constable had decided ’not to proceed to interview stage at this point in the process’, and the department was ’looking at considering our options for [the] next steps now’.

Chief Constable Gary Roberts is set to retire in 2022, and Mr Davies said that with this ’hard deadline’, the department would make sure the post is ’hopefully filled in good time’.

Mr Roberts took up the top post in 2013, having been deputy chief constable since 2008.

He was the first Manx officer to have risen up through the ranks to the position.

In all other cases, chief constables have been recruited from the UK.

Mr Davies stressed that ’all options’ were being looked at and could not confirm whether or not a Chief Constable would need to be brought in from the UK to replace Mr Roberts.

The police have not had a deputy chief constable since Mr Roberts stepped up to chief constable.

The plan had been for him to appoint a deputy to shadow him in the year up to him leaving his post. The pandemic delayed that process.