THE first black man to be made a chief constable has been appointed to lead Kent’s police force.

Micheal Fuller, who is 44 and a senior officer with the Metropolitan Police, is expected to make tackling drug-related crime a priority and to give the force a more caring and visible image. He is due to start the £120,000 a year post in January.

Mr Fuller, a married father-of-two, will be unveiled as the new head of Kent Police on Monday having beat three other candidates to the post.

He is currently a deputy assistant commissioner with the Metropolitan Police, which he joined as a police cadet in 1975, a time when there were only five other black officers in the force.

Four years ago Mr Fuller became the first black member of the Association of Chief Black Officers.

In December 2001 he was appointed to lead the Met Police Drugs Directorate developing a strategy to tackle the problem in the capital.

He is expected to bring the same tough approach to Kent, while also making the force seem more family-orientated.

Kent Police Authority insisted its decision was nothing to do with ethnicity and that he was simply the best of their final four candidates.

A spokesman for the authority said the move was a tremendous message to Kent and the rest of the country with a positive statement for an organisation, which nationally is still dogged by accusations of racism.