Dr MICHAEL SMITH

Dr Michael Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice and the Programme Lead for the Professional Policing and Policing and Criminal Justice degrees. He retired from Merseyside Police in 2022 after serving for 30 years as a police officer.

Mike held numerous posts during his police service, including uniform, support group and investigation roles, lead public order trainer, operational planner and leadership trainer. Mike was also seconded for four years to the College of Policing Public Order and Public Safety unit with national responsibilities for UK public order policing policy and procedures.

Mike specialised in the field of public order policing and was deployed on numerous public order and public safety events throughout his service. As an accredited Public Safety Tactical Adviser for 19 years, Mike was deployed at over 100 different events in Merseyside across the UK at Gold, Silver and Bronze level. Events include; high profile sporting events such as Champions League football matches and The Open Championship golf tournament; protests and marches such as G8 protest in Northern Ireland and NATO conference marches in South Wales; and serious disorder such as experienced in Liverpool in 2011.

Mike is an experienced trainer, having delivered public order and personal safety training to police officers and staff for over 20 years at tactical and strategic levels, including delivering public order command courses to senior officers from across the UK. He has developed and delivered numerous international public order strategic command courses, including to officers of the Ethiopian Federal Police, Tanzania Police Force, Royal Anguilla Police Force, Sierra Leone Police and of the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces. His final posting was as lead trainer in the Leadership Academy where he developed and delivered leadership training to police officers and staff of all ranks in Merseyside Police.

As a serving officer, Mike conducted research into protest policing and the balancing of human rights, examining the policing response at protest events. Since undertaking a position as senior lecturer, Mike has been exploring a multi-agency approach to the management and organisation of large events and has conducted research into the planning and delivery of the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool in 2023 and in Malmö, Sweden in 2024. Mike is currently examining how the approach has been applied to other large events, such as at The Open Championship.

Recent publications

Smith, M. and Phythian, R. (2026) Policing Eurovision: A multi-agency approach to large events. London. Routledge.

Phythian, R. and Smith, M. (2024) A tale of two Eurovision cities: Multi-agency approaches and defining success. Policing Insight.

Smith, M. (2023) Protest policing and human rights: A dialogical approach. London and New York. Routledge.