Police and crime commissioner defends going on 130-date UK theatre tour

Reform UK’s inaugural Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has defended his plans to embark on a nationwide theatre tour featuring over 100 dates next year.

Colin Sutton, who was elected to the Norfolk PCC position under two months ago, will travel the UK presenting a live production titled The Makings Of A Murderer – Double Jeopardy.

Online listings from promoters detail 130 scheduled shows, taking place between January and November 2027.

The former Metropolitan Police detective Mr Sutton maintained that his decision to go on the tour would not adversely affect his overall performance in his official duties as PCC.

He said: “I’m not a blue light service where I go round and turn up at things.”

He added that the PCC is a “very strategic role about setting priorities and setting budgets”, and he would only be “incommunicado” for two-hour slots while he is on stage.

Mr Sutton, who was a police officer for 30 years, led the investigation that brought serial killer Levi Bellfield to justice.

There has been some criticism of Mr Sutton’s decision to go on the tour from opposition parties, with Labour MP Ben Goldsborough, for South Norfolk, telling the BBC that “you can’t police a county from the back of a tour bus”.

Asked why he decided to go on the tour, Mr Sutton said: “Because I was asked to do it and I spoke to the people around me and we decided that it wouldn’t impinge – me doing that in my spare time would not impinge on my duties as PCC.”

Asked if a reason to go on the tour was to earn extra money, he said: “I don’t do it for nothing, but the basis of it, the thing I like doing is I actually like touring.

“Am I not entitled to spend my spare time as I wish?”

He said that he does not know the final number of dates on the tour, and that “some will be taken away I’m sure”.

“The logistics of each evening are that I turn up at about 7pm, I go on stage at 7.30pm and I’m clear by 10pm,” he said.

“I don’t do any rehearsal, any setting up or anything like that.

“I just literally turn up, talk and go away again.

“The time I’m actually incommunicado is really reduced to two-hour slots which is the two-hour slots when I’m actually on stage talking.”

He continued: “I’m not a blue light service where I go round and turn up at things.

“The PCC is a very strategic role about setting priorities and setting budgets.

“Yes I will be aware of things that are going on in the force and I will be told of them but it doesn’t involve me turning up and taking command or anything like that.

“It’s a bit odd to suggest I can never leave Norfolk because I happen to be the PCC.”

He said that his “first priority is Norfolk” and “when it was mooted to me that I might do this (tour) I sat down with the staff and officials in the PCC office to make sure we were happy that it could be done at the same time and they are happy and so am I”.

Asked if going on the tour would not have an impact on his performance as PCC, he said: “Absolutely, and if it were to I wouldn’t do it.”

Mr Sutton said he has been working on a new policing plan which is due to be announced in October and is “trying to refocus a bit onto rural crime which is what I promised to do”.

The Government announced last year that the role of police and crime commissioner will be scrapped in 2028 when the next nationwide elections are set to be held to save at least £100 million.