Sara Thornton (police officer)  Dame Sara Joanne Thornton, (born 27 December 1962) is the current UK's Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. She was appointed by the Home Secretary at the time, Sajid Javid, in succession to Kevin Hyland who left the post in May 2018. She is a retired British police officer who was the first Chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) and the former Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police and Vice-President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). She was the second consecutive head of the Thames Valley Police to move onto leadership of a national policing body; at Thames Valley she replaced former Chief Constable Peter Neyroud who, in January 2007, moved to the role of Chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency. Thornton was born on 27 December 1962 in Poole, Dorset. She attended the University of Durham and gained a BA in philosophy and politics. Thornton also has a Diploma in Applied Criminology from the Cambridge Institute of Criminology. Thornton's policing career began with the Metropolitan Police in 1986. For the next 14 years she alternated between operational postings in West London and strategic roles within New Scotland Yard. She joined Thames Valley Police as the Assistant Chief Constable for Specialist Operations in November 2000 and was appointed Deputy Chief Constable in August 2003, where her responsibilities included performance and developing the strategic direction for the Force. More recently she has played a pivotal role in implementing Neighbourhood Policing across the Thames Valley. In 2007, Thornton became Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police. Following an inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in 2010, Thornton accepted that the number of crimes being solved by the force had fallen too low and needed to increase from 14%, which was then the lowest in the country. On 1 December 2014, it was announced that Thornton would leave Thames Valley Police to become the Chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, (NPCC) effectively taking over from Sir Hugh Orde. The NPCC replaced the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in April 2015. Thornton also took over from Sir Hugh Orde as Patron of the Police Roll of Honour Trust. In 2015, the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board published a critical serious case review report into child sexual exploitation in Oxfordshire, following the jailing in 2013 of seven men for abusing six girls in Oxford between 2004 and 2012. In response to the report, Thornton repeated an apology to victims and their families saying "We are ashamed of the shortcomings identified in this report and we are determined to do all we can to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again."