Former Gwent Police officer Ian Johnston has been elected the region's first police and crime commissioner (PCC).

The independent candidate beat Labour's Hamish Sandison in the second round of voting.

The turnout for last Thursday's (15th November) election was only 14 per cent in Gwent, reflecting voter apathy across the country.

One polling station in Newport had no voters at all.

Mr Johnston served as a police officer for 33 years before taking up a role with the Police Superintendents' Association of England and Wales.

From April 2010 to September 2012 he ran a consultancy company alongside his wife Janet and has worked as a police advisor for BBC Radio Wales.

Mr Johnston polled 23,531 first preference votes to Mr Sandison's 23,087 and was elected after second preferences were taken into account, leaving him on 29,748 and the Labour candidate on 24,636.

Conservative Nick Webb polled 6,630 votes and independent Christopher Wright finished on 6,118 votes.

Mr Johnston's pledges included reducing crime and anti-social disorder, to focus on the needs of victims and to find solutions to local problems.

He told the Beacon he had already met with Gwent Police's chief constable Carmel Napier.

"I shared the experiences I have had over the past five months interacting with the public," said Mr Johnston.

"The public have been more likely to say things to me than in an official police forum so I passed on the messages from the public and we had a very interesting debate.

"We also looked at how we are going to work together, because this is new for the chief and new for me.

"The operational independence of the chief has got to be maintained but the policing plan must reflect what the public wants."

Mr Johnston says he will soon begin the task of engaging with the thousands of Gwent residents who did not vote.

"Over the next six or seven weeks, both daytimes and evenings, I will be visiting a lot of community council meetings that I had promised to go back to," he said.

"I will also be using social media, going to public meetings and PACT meetings, and I think that will be a good time to review those and how the police use them to interact with people."

Any groups or community councils who would like to speak to Mr Johnston can call him on 07968473703 or email [email protected]">[email protected]