Workers at Wishaw Police Office gave a fond farewell to one of their most popular colleagues on his retiral from the force.
Constable Kenny Samuel departed from the force after 26 years and was piped out of the office by Christopher Ross from the Police Scotland and Federation Pipe Band while colleagues formed a guard of honour.
Speaking to Lanarkshire Live following his retiral, Kenny, 57, reflected on a long and varied career.
He told us: “I’ll be sad to finish up as I’ve been doing it for such a long time.
“I’ve been part of a few specialist departments and have had some fairly unique roles.
“I’ll be looking forward to have some more flexibility and spending more time at home.
“I enjoy being outdoors and riding horses so will be doing a lot more of that.”
Having worked in the transport and farming industry, Kenny began his career with the police at the age of 31.
He began working in Greenock in 1996 before moving onto Port Glasgow three years later.
He went on to his first endeavour with the traffic department at Greenock in 2000.
Kenny moved to the traffic landward department at Motherwell in 2004 and then went on to the traffic motorway section at Motherwell until 2006.
He then began a five year stint with the mounted branch before beginning his work in Lanarkshire.
Kenny performed duties in various parts of the division until joining the Shotts Community Policing team in 2018.
Kenny carried out many different additional roles at Shotts gaining the reputation as the “go to guy” for anything the police needed.
He also took on the job of Shotts Prison Liaison Officer which was and still is a very busy role and in true Kenny fashion, he took the role on alongside his duties as a community cop.
This role generates an enormous amount of activity with many cases being reported from the prison per year.
Wishaw Area Inspector Alan Mulholland said: "PC Samuel has been an excellent asset to Police Scotland in the time he has spent in Lanarkshire, in particular his community policing efforts in and around Shotts, Allanton, Harthill and surrounding villages.
“He has been involved in an abundance of roles such as road policing, mounted unit, public order officer and wildlife liaison officer.
"This has allowed him to flourish as a great all round community officer and he has been a source of much comfort to the members of the community he has served over the past 10 year in Lanarkshire.
"He will be sadly missed by his colleagues, the community and our partners however, we wish him all the very best in whatever the next chapter holds.”
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