Watch: Olympic champion Denise Lewis sends birthday message to Birmingham Inspector

One Birmingham cop got a great surprise after he receieved a special birthday message from former Olympic champion and Commonwealth Games England president Denise Lewis.

The athlete - who opened the official Birmingham 2022 Megastore in Centenary Square last week - was filmed wishing Inspector Chris Harrison a happy birthday alongside a Commonwealth Games batonbearer..

The Birmingham City Centre Police posted a video on its Twitter page.

In the video, which was arranged by Inspector Harrison’s wife, Lewis said: “Hey Chris, happy birthday, I know you didn’t think it was possible but your misses has delivered as she always does right.

“So have a great day, enjoy yourself and see you in Brum.”

Major police operation in place for Games

Lewis who won two Commonwealth gold medals at the 1994 Victoria and 1998 Kuala Lumpur Games, was in Birmingham on July 4, ahead of the Games, which get underway on July 28.

The Games policing team becomes the 10th biggest ‘police force’ in the country for the duration of the event with up to 3,300 officers involved on any one day.

But Assistant Chief Constable Matt Ward – who’s running the police operation – said the force want the policing presence to very much take a back seat to the sporting spectacle.

He said: “I’m confident our planning, professional testing and exercising, plus the wealth of experience across our teams and our partners, will combine to deliver a safe and secure Birmingham 2022.

“There’s no doubt this is a big police operation incorporating a range of resources including drones, police dogs, firearms, traffic and other specialist police teams.

“There will also be plain clothes officers mingling with crowds to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.

“But success for us is that the policing operation during the Games is unobtrusive.

“We want to offer reassurance that we’re here to keep people safe and have been planning that for more than two years – but we won’t be intrusive because we just want people to enjoy some world class sport, safe in the knowledge we’re here should anyone want us.

“But we’d ask attendees to be vigilant as you’d expect with any large gathering and to report anything to us that doesn’t look right.

“This is a great opportunity to showcase Birmingham and the wider West Midlands on a global scale and we have an important role to play.”

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