This Christmas, one police officer put some extra thought into a present for her dad - by changing her collar number to his old one.

In 2006, PC Tracey Dudley’s dad retired from West Midlands Police after 30 years of service as a neighbourhood and response officer and later as a detective.

PC Dudley joined the force in 2008, after years of working for a local primary school as a secretary and is now part of Sandwell’s Partnership police team where she focuses on anti-social behaviour in the area.

She has helped tackle some of the most prolific anti-social offenders in Sandwell, has been responsible for banning orders and has even recently been nominated for a Local Government Award with Sandwell Council for her work on eradicating unauthorised encampments in the area.

It was her family’s history of working for the police that encouraged her to also join and this year, 10 years after she joined, she came up with a special Christmas gift as a mark of respect for her dad’s work.

She presented a picture to her dad on Christmas morning yesterday (Tuesday 25 December) of her wearing his old collar number 2461 and posing with a police car just like he did, much to his surprise. PC Dudley said:

“Christmas is always a special time of year for my family and my dad instilled a lot of Christmas traditions into us. I wanted to have the same collar number as my dad when I first started, but before I knew it, the years rolled by.

“This year though it seemed fitting on my 10 year anniversary, to mark both my dad’s service and my own. I enquired to see if it was possible to change my collar number and I was stunned to find out it actually was.

"I have been so excited to show my dad for months! Every year he gets the standard presents off us, but this year I wanted to present him with something really meaningful."

PC Dudley’s dad Chris Randell, who was also based at Sandwell for part of his policing career, policed the miners’ strikes in the 80s and dealt with some of the most serious cases while working as a detective.