Norfolk’s newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner is under fire after announcing a 127-date national theatre tour that will keep him on the road for much of next year, prompting opposition politicians to question whether he can effectively oversee the county’s police force while performing true-crime shows across the UK.
Colin Sutton, the Reform UK commissioner who took office in July on a £79,000 salary, will spend January through November 2027 touring “Makings of a Murderer” — a stage show drawn from his career hunting serial killer Levi Bellfield. Tickets are priced at around £40. The schedule includes a five-night stretch covering nearly 700 miles from County Durham to north Wales via Staffordshire, Norfolk and West Yorkshire.
The tour that triggered a political storm
Promoters unveiled the dates this week. The itinerary reads less like a public servant’s diary and more like a touring comedian’s: Consett on a Monday, Tamworth Tuesday, Hunstanton Wednesday, Llandudno Thursday, Leeds Friday. Five nights. Four hotels. Almost 1,126 kilometres behind the wheel.
For Ben Goldsborough, Labour MP for South Norfolk, the calculation is simple. “You can’t police a county from the back of a tour bus,” he said. “If Colin Sutton wants to be a celebrity that’s his choice, but Norfolk deserves a police and crime commissioner whose first priority is Norfolk.”
Matthew Taylor, the Conservative county councillor who finished second in July’s by-election, was blunter. “Shocked,” he said. “If there is a major incident, you would expect the police and crime commissioner to be there, front and centre. Not operationally — that’s down to the chief constable — but in terms of lending his support, communicating with the public, being active and visible.”
From Bellfield to the boards
Sutton’s profile is unusual for a PCC. The former Metropolitan Police detective led the investigation that caught Levi Bellfield, responsible for the murders of Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange. After retiring, he wrote a book on the case, saw it adapted into an ITV drama, and became a fixture on rolling news channels. Last year, Reform UK named him the party’s national policing and crime adviser.
He won the Norfolk by-election comfortably after Sarah Taylor’s resignation. The role is substantial: setting force priorities, appointing the chief constable, holding them to account. It is not, by design, a part-time position.
‘Two hours incommunicado’
Sutton rejects the criticism. He says he consulted “the people around me” and concluded the tour “wouldn’t impinge” on the day job.
“The logistics of each evening are that I turn up at about 7pm, I go on stage at 7.30pm and I’m clear by 10pm,” he explained. “I don’t do any rehearsal… I just literally turn up, talk and go away again. The time I’m actually incommunicado is really reduced to the two-hour slots when I’m actually on stage talking. I’m not a blue light service where I go round and turn up at things.”
It is a defence that hinges on a narrow definition of availability. Two hours on stage. Plus travel. Plus the mental bandwidth of performing 127 times in eleven months.
The precedent problem
PCCs have second jobs before. Some write columns. Some sit on boards. Few, if any, have embarked on a national theatre tour while in office.
The role was created in 2012 to make policing accountable to the public. The commissioner is the bridge between the force and the community — visible, accessible, answerable. A major incident in Norfolk next spring would find the commissioner in a dressing room in Llandudno, or on the M62 heading for Leeds.
Sutton insists he can do both. His critics insist the public didn’t elect a performer.
Why it Matters
This row cuts to the heart of what the PCC model was supposed to achieve: direct democratic accountability for policing. If the commissioner treats the role as a platform for personal brand-building — however distinguished his past service — the link between the public and their police force frays. The question isn’t whether Sutton can physically attend meetings between shows. It’s whether a part-time commissioner, however efficient, can ever be the full-time advocate Norfolk voted for.