Seventeen officers from different formations joined the Police Negotiation Cadre (PNC) after taking a Crisis Negotiation Course from October 16 to 27, bringing the PNC membership to 83.

The PNC was established in 1975 as a segment of the Force's counter-terrorism response mechanism. Since then, the cadre has evolved to meet the ever-changing needs of the community. Currently, it has become an important team of the Force to deal with crises and incidents.

Apart from the 17 police officers, five members of local and overseas law enforcement agencies - Hong Kong Fire Services Department, Hong Kong Immigration Department, Macao Judiciary Police, Singapore Police Force and Singapore Prison Service - also participated in the course. They attended over 120 hours of lectures during the day as well as simulated exercises in the evening, and then passed all the tests. The course has been accredited with a credit transferal arrangement for the Postgraduate Diploma in Public Order Studies (Crisis Negotiation) offered by the HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education. The diploma has been awarded Level 6 qualification - equivalent to Master Level - under the Hong Kong Qualifications Framework.

Assistant Commissioner (Operations) Cheng Yiu-mo presented the certificates to the trainees, and hoped that they could put what they have learned into practice to serve the community. He also thanked the training team for organising the course, giving equal emphasis to theory and practicality.

The head of PNC, Chief Superintendent Wong Kwong-hing, encouraged all new members to live by the PNC's motto, "Who Cares Wins", and to serve people in need with sincerity, nobility and commitment.

The 17 new PNC members have been attached to four negotiation teams and they would be on stand-by duty for two weeks per month in the first half of the year. To facilitate them to familiarise with the cadre's work, an experienced negotiator has been assigned to each of them as a mentor.