On Monday 5th September 2022, retired Heulwen Macpherson and Michael Cannon of the United Kingdom police service paid a courtesy visit to the Inspector General of Police William Fayia Sellu in his office at the police headquarters, George Street in Freetown.

According to Heulwen Mocpherson, they are working in collaboration with Non-Governmental Organizations and the Family Support Unit to conduct training on sexual offenses investigations against women and girls.

She noted that human trafficking, rape, and sexual-related offenses are challenging issues in contemporary policing, for which they are here to assist the Family Support Unit with the requisite skills and knowledge to investigate such cases.

“This is my third visit to Sierra Leone and I have done two sets of training as we are focusing on sexual violence, child protection, and human trafficking to assist the Family Support Unit in combating this menace” she concluded.

In his response, the Inspector General of Police William Fayia Sellu welcome the team to Sierra Leone and thank them for their support. He furthered that the issue of rape and sexually related violence came up during the civil war in Sierra Leone; and that the good aspect of it was the establishment of the Family Support Unit to handle all sexually related cases.

He added that the FSU has been very successful in those strides and that the Sierra Leone Police depends on their goodwill.

“I have a passion for women and girls and for the FSU; things are changing every day and it is but prudent to live up to those challenges”, he stated.
” I am grateful for your support about the training program in a bid to equip our investigators with the necessary skills and I promise to visit you during the training to see how it ends”, he noted.

He thanks and appreciates the United Kingdom Police Service for their thoughts and recognition.