FOR the first time a woman is to take over responsibility for all major crime investigations in North Yorkshire.

Carmel Napier becomes head of CID on her promotion to detective chief inspector and the force's head of specialist support.

The move means that women will now hold three of the key jobs in policing England's biggest county.

They include Della Cannings - who is about to become the force's chief constable, and Jane Kenyon, who chairs the county's police authority.

The new head of CID began her police career in Hertfordshire in 1983 after taking a degree in English and music.

She has wide experience of major crime and incident investigations and transferred to North Yorkshire two years ago to take over the complaints and professional standards department.

Also in 2000, she was the incident commander during the disastrous Selby floods - and was invited to meet the Prime Minister at Downing Street in recognition of the police work involved.

Her new role will see her given over all control of CID and associated support departments including scenes of crime, fingerprint bureau, technical support, fraud and drug squads and criminal intelligence.

Yesterday, she said she was looking forward to the challenges offered by her new role.

"The work will bring with it many challenges and my priority is to review and establish our current levels of performance and to ascertain our partner agencies' and communities' needs and responsibilities.

"I will then build on the firm foundation already in place to deliver best value to the force and all its customers," she said.