She is responsible for all national and international Policing related Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Partnership Programmes in the School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences.
Prior to academia, she spent 20 years as a Kent Police officer working in uniformed response, criminal investigation, intelligence and public protection in different ranks. During her time in Public Protection she held responsibility for investigations into child sexual harm, child serious physical harm, high risk domestic abuse and was a nationally accredited child death investigator. Other portfolios of responsibility included missing persons and mental heath for South East Kent, Implementation of the intelligence led policing model and Gender progression/ representation across the force.
Securing an MSc in Police leadership and Management whilst an operational officer on the fast track promotion scheme, her dissertation focused on Police Culture winning the best dissertation award. Awarded a scholarship to attend the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) as an associate lecturer she complete a PhD in Forensic Psychology, titled 'An examination of the psychological pathways of male carers who seriously harm and murder their children', supported by the National Homicide working group into reducing child death. She teaches a variety of policing related issues across programmes within the school with occasional guest lecturing at other institutions on policing related matters.
Tara is a passionate supporter of Police Professionalisation and is actively involved in the professionalisation agenda with the College of Policing and the Police Education Consortium, overseeing delivery of the PCDA/DHEP and DDHEP to serving officers in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. Her key academic interests focus on Police Culture, Police Professionalisation, Fast Track Detective Programmes, Equality and Diversity: the PCDA/DHEP experience of ‘police culture’, and child death investigation.