A RETIRED top police officer will present a talk of 'lessons to be learned for business when disaster strikes' at a Somerset Chamber of Commerce breakfast event this month.

Rob Beckley, High Sheriff in Nomination for Somerset, will give a fascinating insight into liability, risk, decision-making and leadership, along with other business-focus strengths and weaknesses.

There will also be a short introduction by the current High Sheriff of Somerset, Robert Drewett, at the event at Clarke Willmott's offices, in Blackbrook Park Avenue, Taunton, from 8am to 10am on Tuesday, October 17.

Rob is a former Deputy Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police and is currently an Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police.

He has been leading the re-opened investigations into the Hillsborough disaster and will explore some of the lessons from that and other tragedies, events and scandals of the past 30 years.

He will focus on the experiences of some of the businesses, companies and organisations caught up in, or responsible for, such occurrences and will examine how they responded to crisis, looking at their liabilities, decision-making and the strengths and failures of their leadership.

Rob has extensive operational and investigative policing experience at every rank up to Chief Constable, serving in four police forces.

Before joining the police, he studied law at Durham University and worked in education in Africa for four years.

He lives is Pitminster and is married to Sue, a pathologist at Taunton's Musgrove Park Hospital.

They have agreed over the years not to take their work home as it could be messy.

Rob’s BBC Radio 4 series with Baroness Helena Kennedy, 'Can the Police Keep Us Safe?' was broadcast last September. He is now working on a new series on policing protest.

Tickets of the breakfast event, which includes rolls, tea, coffee and pastries, are £12.50 plus VAT and bookings close at 12noon on Monday, October 16.

If you are not a member of Somerset Chamber of Commerce, you can make your booking by calling 01823 444924 or by emailing membership@somerset-chamber.co.uk