Hugh Hume, Chief Executive for the office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, has had a career spanning both policing and contemporary police oversight across four decades.
Hugh Hume has been Chief Executive for the office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland since July 2024.
Hugh’s career, which has encompassed both policing and contemporary police oversight, has spanned almost four decades.
He believes passionately that independent police oversight is essential if policing is to be improved and public confidence maintained.
He has worked in this sphere since 2017, firstly as Deputy Chief Inspector of the Garda Síochána Inspectorate (2017-2021) and latterly as a Commissioner with the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (2021-2024), a body which was largely equivalent to the Police Ombudsman’s Office.
Between 2021 and his appointment to the Police Ombudsman, Hugh was a Member of the management board of the European Partners against Corruption (EPAC) and European contact-point network against corruption (EACN), serving as Deputy Vice President with responsibility for Policing Oversight. These networks are made up of 100 anti-corruption and police oversight bodies who share knowledge and experience to combat corruption and improve policing within Council of Europe and European Union Countries.
Prior to moving into policing oversight, Hugh served as a police officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
He first joined the police in 1986 and his work was largely community-based until 2007 when he became a Detective Superintendent in Crime Operations, part of the Intelligence branch. For the next ten years until his retirement in 2017, Hugh led the Specialist Operations and Intelligence Branches.
Hugh holds a BSc (hons) in Policing and Police Studies and studied leadership of investigations through a programme managed by Harvard and St Andrew’s Universities. He was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal in 2016 for distinguished police service.