Toby Speller: Marine Unit launch honouring special constable will help to keep our marine communities and coastal visitors safe

Our Marine Unit launch Toby Speller is continuing the force’s proud tradition of policing the Essex coast to help keep visitors and our marine communities safe.

And on Saturday, we officially welcomed the boat into the force, to serve alongside the unit’s other vessel, Sentinel, on sea and river patrols along 350 miles of coastline from the Stour to the Thames.

The launch is named in tribute to special constable Toby Speller who volunteered with the Marine Unit for six years until his untimely death from Covid-19 in January 2021.

Attending the official launch at Bradwell Marina on 9 May were members of Toby’s family, Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington, Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Roger Hurst, Essex Deputy Lord Lieutenant Charles Anderson and Essex High Sheriff Susannah Dutton.

They were joined by police officers and staff, serving and retired, from the Marine Unit who knew Toby and senior officers from Operational Policing Command.

Following a naming ceremony and blessing, conducted by police chaplain Peter Pleydell, guests were treated to a tour of our new launch.

Mr Harrington says:

“We police with the consent of our communities and, at sea as on land, partnerships and volunteers are vital in helping the force to keep people safe.
“Toby embodied that spirit through his service as both an expert mariner and an Essex Police Special. Naming our new launch after him is a visible and lasting endorsement of those values.
“As a family force, we are proud to recognise Toby’s service in a way that stands as an enduring mark of our thanks – one that both his loved ones and his police family can be proud of.
“The Toby Speller will allow us to continue our vital work protecting our marine community and keeping people safe along the coastline, on our rivers and right to the edge of our jurisdiction, 12 miles out to sea.”

Toby joined Essex Police as a special constable in July 2004, starting his voluntary career with response and neighbourhood policing teams in Southend and Laindon.

A dedicated and professional officer, Toby became a Special Inspector at Southend before joining the Marine Unit in 2015 as one of the first Specials to be part of this dedicated team.

At the beginning of June 2025, the force took delivery of a new vessel to replace our previous launch, Alert IV.

And we wanted to remember Toby’s passion for and commitment to the Marine Unit and the marine community by naming the boat after him.

Built in Scotland, the Toby Speller is 42 feet in length, weighs around seven and a half tonnes and is capable of reaching speeds of up to 35 knots.

Importantly, she has been designed to operate safely in all sea conditions, giving Essex Police the resilience to respond to incidents in all weathers, anywhere in our coastal waters.

Operation Wave-Breaker

The Toby Speller joins the Marine Unit’s rigid-hulled inflatable boat (rhib) Sentinel in policing Essex coastal waters.

 From the Thames to the Stour, our marine officers make regular sea and shore-based patrols along the county’s 350-mile coastline, as the Essex Police Marine Unit has done since its formation in 1949.

Nowadays, their attention is mainly on preventing anti-social behaviour and keeping water-users safe from harm.

During the summer months, Operation Wave-Breaker patrols focus on educating users of personal watercraft and other small vessels about their responsibilities before taking to the water.

Since the Marine Unit launched the patrols in spring 2021, in response to a rise in anti-social behaviour involving personal watercraft, reported incidents have dropped considerably. The operation has been adopted as best practice nationally by the College of Policing.

Our marine officers also cover inland waterways and often undertake patrols on foot in and around Roydon Marina on the River Lea.

The Essex Police Marine Unit

While community engagement and tackling anti-social behaviour through on and offshore patrols is a large part of our marine officers’ work, their role is extremely varied.

Officers work closely with water-borne partners, including the Coastguard, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the Kent and Essex Inshore Fisheries Conservation Authority.

They provide specialised crime prevention advice to the marine community, conduct criminal investigations, patrol critical national infrastructure, respond to medical emergencies and provide the force with a specialist water search capability.

Their work also involves inspecting commercial and foreign-registered vessels arriving in Essex waters, enforcing maritime laws and providing a co-ordinated approach to saving lives at sea and searching for missing people.

They even deal with unexploded ordnance.

• For more information about the work of our marine officers, visit our Marine Unit pages