2008

This year’s chieftain is Catherine (Cate) Jackson Fifty-year-old daughter of Lilian Mackay, Midville, Durine, Durness, and was educated at the village primary school and Dornoch Academy. Cate has two teenage daughters and is a regular visitor to her home village,

West Yorkshire-based detective constable Catherine (Cate) Jackson has won two top awards for her work with victims of crime and was presented in 2007 with the National Family Liaison Officer of the Year Award by Harriet Harman MP, Minister of State for Constitutional Affairs and a trophy for outstanding police work awarded by the West Yorkshire Police Authority in recognition of her work within family liaison. In February2007 she attended a reception at Buckingham Palace and met Her Majesty the Queen.

Cate joined West Yorkshire Police in 1979 at Morley near Leeds after a brief spell with the military police. Since then she has worked around the force and spent 10 years working as a coroner's officer. She is presently West Yorkshire Police's family liaison co-ordinator based with the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET) in Bradford. As the head of the family liaison department, Cate is responsible for all 200 family liaison officers in the West Yorkshire force. She has been involved on some very high profile cases, such as the Selby rail crash, the London bombings the shootings of Police Constable Ian Broadhurst and Police Constable Sharon Beshenivsky. She has also found the time to develop strategies and new working practices for the delivery of family liaison services. Durness Highland gathering is on Friday 25th July starting 12 noon at the village square.