TWO North Wales Police officers are to receive awards in the Queen’s New Year's Honours list.

Following the announcement that Detective Constable Tim Bird and Sergeant Scott Gallagher were on the list, Chief Constable Mark Polin said: “I would like to congratulate both Tim and Scott on being given this well-deserved award.

"It is a real pleasure to see their hard work, professionalism and dedication being recognised in this way. I know I speak on behalf of all the chief officers when I say that I am proud of their achievements.”

Scott will receive an MBE for services to policing and the National Police Air Service, whilst Tim is to receive an MBE for services to policing and the local community.

Tim, is a team leader for the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation (OVMRO) and lives with his family in the Conwy Valley. He has been a North Wales Police officer since 2001.

A former professional mountaineering and water sports instructor, Tim has been a volunteer member of the Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) for 15 years.

North Wales Police are the coordinating agency for Search and Rescue and delegate these duties to the volunteer MRTs of the North Wales Mountain Rescue Association.

Snowdonia has between 10-15 mountain related deaths per year. Tim has used a combination of policing skills as an investigator, his professional mountaineering skills and his National Governing Body qualifications to take a lead role in investigating and training of both MRTs and Police in the investigation and reporting of mountain fatalities.

The Fatal Incident Protocol course run by Tim has trained over 120 staff and has been recognised as best practice by the National College of Policing.

In addition Tim has attended and investigated as a community volunteer, numerous mountain fatalities and then produced expert opinion reports and given evidence to the Coroner. The combination of Tim’s work within the Mountain Rescue community linked with his Policing skills has helped many bereaved families come to terms with the loss of a loved one in the mountains of Snowdonia

He has played a key role in setting up ‘MountainSafe,’ a multi-agency community project between North Wales Police, Snowdon National Park Authority, Plas y Brenin, the British Mountaineering Council and the National Trust. Mountain Safe has provided community outreach to all mountain users through awareness campaigns and training courses to reduce the impact of mountain incidents in North Wales.

Tim has been a volunteer member of OVMRO for 15 years and has attended more than 500 Mountain Rescue incidents and training events. Many incidents occur during extreme weather and at night and require a high level of team working with MRT and NWP. In recent years Tim has become a Team Leader with OVMRO and now coordinates rescue callouts on the mountain and at the MRT base in the Ogwen Valley.

In addition to traditional mountain rescue incidents, North Wales MRTs also provide a swift water rescue and flooding response. Tim is a qualified swift water and flood rescue instructor and has attended as a community volunteer at local, regional and national flooding events.

Tim said: “I am honoured to have received an MBE. However the award also reflects the hard work, dedication and professionalism of all those people I have been fortunate enough to work with both in policing and in mountain rescue.”

Scott, 49, lives with his family in Connah’s Quay. He joined North Wales Police in 1992 and has held the rank of Sergeant since 2000.

Stationed in the eastern and central parts of the force, Scott spent a significant part of his service as a community sergeant in Flint until 2008 when he joined the North Wales Police Air Operations Unit.

Whilst at Rhuddlan he managed the air base, providing support to the communities of North Wales. In 2012 Scott managed the transition of the North Wales Unit into the national collaboration of all police air support in England and Wales known as ‘The National Police Air Service’ (NPAS).

Scott works as part of a team of people delivering change within NPAS predominantly focusing upon aircraft modification, fleet standardisation and replacement. Significantly the refurbishment of 7 aircraft with improved mission equipment, fixed wing aircraft and replacement aircraft communication system (Emergency Services Network).

Scott has been involved in numerous community based activities and until 2016 the vice chair of school governors at Connah’s Quay High School.

Scott said: “I am very honoured to receive this award which although is bestowed upon me, it represents a lot of work and effort of many. I am a proud member of a wider police family all of whom are skilled professionals’ working to make communities safer. It means an awful lot to me and my family.”