THE Police and Crime Commissioner election for Cleveland followed the national trend of the Conservative candidate sweeping into office but the scale of the victory came as a shock.

Conservative candidate Steve Turner secured the role in the first round of counting after winning more than 50 per cent of the vote.

The scale of the election defeat has severely dented the Labour Party's hold over the position.

Labour's Barry Coppinger was the inaugural holder the post when he was elected in 2012 and held the position until his resignation last September.

Now the party's stranglehold on the position has been swept away with Mr Turner's devastating victory.

The former Redcar and Cleveland councillor secured 74,023 of the votes cast with Labour's Matt Storey coming a distant second with 39,467 votes, third was former police officer and independent candidate Barrie Copper with 16,667 votes and trailing in last was Liberal Democrat Chris Jones who managed to secure 6,540 ballots.

Speaking after being announced the victor, Mr Turner said: "The job is too important to let petty politics to deny the people of Cleveland the right to have their concerns taken seriously.

"All three candidates behind my are members of the Cleveland Police Crime Panel and I'm sure they will continue their work to hold me to account at Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner and I welcome that.

"I'm looking forward to the work of getting Cleveland Police back on track and becoming an excellent police force; and our Chief Constable and the phenomenal frontline officers have already began that journey."

The force has been beset with a number of scandals during Barry Coppinger's time in the role and his replacement understands the scale of the work needed to repair the force's tarnished reputation.

Mr Turner added: "It's a fantastic achievement to get it elected on the first round and it gives me a real mandate from the people of Cleveland to take my ideas forward.

"I have talked about being tough on crime, tough on anti-social behaviour, we're going to crack down on drug dealing on our streets because it is unacceptable.

"One of the first things that I will be doing is sitting down with the Chief Constable setting out our strategy and talking about the resources that he needs to be able to carry out those plans."

The turnout for the election was 33.7 per cent which is significantly higher than previous elections. Mr Turner was an easy winner in all four of the boroughs covered by Cleveland Police – Redcar and Cleveland, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Stockton.