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A leading Newcastle councillor insists that a lack of experience in policing or criminal justice will not hold her back in her bid to succeed Vera Baird as overseer of the region's police force.

Kim McGuinness, unveiled earlier this week as Labour's by-election candidate to become Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), has pledged to be the "people's commissioner" if she is elected to the top job.

As the city council's cabinet member for culture, sport and public health, her record presents a stark contrast to Dame Vera's background as a barrister and the UK's former Solicitor General.

But the 34-year-old, who would become the country's youngest police commissioner if she wins on July 18, says that the role is not meant to an "extra chief constable".

Coun McGuinness, who also works for a military charity and previously for Groundwork North East and Cumbria, said: "The PCC role is to be a people's commissioner - to provide representation from people to the police.

"As far as I am concerned, I have a huge amount of experience dealing with communities with issues and people with personal struggles.

"This role is about representing what people want from the police, they deserve a good quality police force. You don't want an extra chief constable, you want a person who is embedded in the community."

Coun McGuinness was born and bred in Newcastle and was elected to represent the Lemington ward in 2015, before being quickly elevated to a cabinet post the following year.

Responsibility for the city's public health issues was added to her portfolio in 2018 and she is now keen to use that experience to tackle the causes of crime.

She said: "This job is about being there for the community, dealing with some of the things that cause people to go into crime, and dealing with the fallout when people are victims of crime.

"I firmly believe that some of the causes of crime are embedded in health inequality. We have to start looking at that link and doing something about it."

Scotland has found success in cutting violent crime by treating the problem as a public health issue - getting the police to work alongside the health, education and social work sectors - and Coun McGuinness wants to replicate that model, which is also being adopted in London, to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour here.

"Scotland have had something like a 60% reduction in violent crime - this is not an academic argument, this is proven to work," she added.

"We have a real opportunity to do something in that space.

"We have an opportunity to lead and to be proactive, to prevent our violent crime rates from growing to that level.

"Our figures are nowhere near London or Scotland, but doing the right things from the get-go means we will never get to that situation."

The Labour candidate is yet to release a policy manifesto, but has said that she is keen to focus on combating cyber crime and tackling the region's growing problem with hate crime.

But whoever takes up the PCC job will be immediately faced with the reality of severe budget cuts - with Northumbria Police having lost 1,000 officers since 2010 amid the biggest funding reductions of any force in the country.

That is a problem that Coun McGuinness is no stranger to.

She said: "One thing that a cabinet role at Newcastle City Council has given me is experience in fighting austerity and standing up to Government.

"I will be taking the message to the Government that if they want an effective police force, then they need to stop fighting between themselves in a leadership election and think about what we need.

"You cannot expect to take vast swathes of money out of the police force and then not expect crime to rise and more people to become victims of crime."

No other candidates have yet been announced for the PCC by-election, which was triggered after Dame Vera quit to become the new national Victims Commissioner.

Voters in Northumberland, Newcastle , Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and Sunderland will go to the polls on Thursday, July 18.