Essex Police Federation

Meet the team

Fulltime officers

Laura Heggie (1)
Laura Heggie

Chair

Laura was elected to the position of the Essex Chair in July 2020 but has been a federation rep since 2014.

Laura is trained in all areas of federation work but is the lead for Post Incident Procedure, an area she is passionate about.

Laura is the voice and face of Essex Police Federation and has responsibility for the Media and Communication Strategy. She has been instrumental in promoting the Facebook group and increasing membership, which currently sits at over 1800 members.  

Laura has promised to make the federation more open, transparent, and honest with the membership. She has vowed to always reflect the views of the membership both internally and externally. 

Laura will strive to represent the membership without fear of favour, building in the relationship she already has with Chief officers on the best interests of officers. 

01245 219148

Dean Yarnall
Dean Yarnall

Secretary/Treasurer

Dean is the Essex Secretary and Treasurer.
Elected in January 2022, he is in overall charge of the Police Federation in Essex.  He oversees the activities of the full-time officers and the elected representatives throughout the Force. He has a particular responsibility for, and expertise in, police ill health pensions.  He is an ex-officio member of all of our sub-committees.

01245 219143

Stuart Jones

Misconduct Lead

Stuart was elected to the post of Principal Officer in October 2016.   

Stuart is the Essex Police Federation Lead for Misconduct.  His full-time role includes liaising with the Professional Standards Department (PSD) and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

Stuart works alongside a dedicated team of Misconduct Trained Reps, who deal with all levels of Misconduct from Crime to offering advice on writing an A57.

01245 219145

Dave Ford
David Ford

Diversity, Equality & Inclusion Officer

David has 22 years policing service and was elected to the position of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Lead in May 2024.  David has spent the past 3 years as a LPT Sergeant at Grays, Basildon and Rayleigh. He has also served for 17 years as a Roads Policing Officer on OPC and 2 years prior to that on LPT.

David has been a Work-Based Fed Rep for the past 8 years and has been trained in Misconduct, Health and Safety, Post Incident Procedure and Advocacy.

Being the Lead in all Diversity and Equality matters involves assisting members with Grievances, Agile Working, Flexible Working, Maternity and Pregnancy, Wellbeing and Disability.

Key to David's role is building relationships with all of Essex Polices varied support networks including LGBTQ+, Meno/Andropause and WLDF.  David is also the Secretary of the Essex Police Men’s Forum.

01245 219144

Office Staff

Helen Oben (1)
Helen Oben

Office Manager

As well as being responsible for the administrative running of the office, Helen manages the Group Insurance Scheme for both serving and retired officers.  She deals with all queries relating to the Critical Illness Cover, Personal Accident Insurance, Life Insurance, Partner Insurance and Casting Benefit.
She also provides secretarial support to the Secretary and Chair.

01245 219141

Esther Howitt
Esther Howitt

Administrative Assistant

Esther is able to assist with Group Insurance, Federation membership and enquiries.  She is also responsible for concessionary rail travel ,travel insurance, Holiday Home holiday home, Leavers, Injury on Duty, Post Incident Procedures, C1s for personal injury claims, C2s and Federation memorabilia.

01245 219142

Essex Police Federation work based Reps

For details of our local worked based Reps please see the attached list, our Reps don't have mobiles so please use internal extension numbers

List of Federation Reps

Essex Board Leads