Christmas support for RMP officers

Officers from Leicestershire Police are being encouraged to send gifts to Royal Military Police (RMP) officers spending Christmas in Afghanistan.

Operation Red Cap aims to send between 75 and 120 shoebox-sized parcels to colleagues who will be ‘in Theatre’ over the festive period.

First established in 2007 by retired PC Gunner Alan Morris, who had previously served as a Territorial Army soldier with the RMP in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the project has sent parcels to military police officers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This year, the beneficiaries will be 111 Provost Company, the first regiment of the RMP, which is deploying from Germany.

Each box costs between £20 and £80 and participants are encouraged to personalise boxes – one police staff member decorated the inside of a box,

another sent a Santa suit to the regimental sergeant major (RSM) to dress in to hand out presents to the officers.

The scheme has fostered good relations between Leicestershire Police and the RMP, with military police officers sending photographs of Christmas Day in Afghanistan and chief officers attending functions at RMP headquarters.

Plaques and a Leicestershire Police helmet were also shared one year.

The RSM of the 111 Provost Company has already expressed his thanks to Leicestershire Police officers who have contributed to the scheme.

This year, both the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner are participating.

The project may be in its final year, however, with RMP officers to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.