The landmark appointment makes her the first woman to take charge of Tayside Police.

With experience in everything from pounding the pavements to counter terrorism, she’s dealt with all aspects of law enforcement over her 20-year career. Even so, her time in Tayside has proved the most challenging yet.

In her first interview since taking up the post, Justine said, “It’s definitely been a big year, personally speaking.

“I’m absolutely delighted to be in this position and it’s great to be able to take a deep breath and think about getting some hard work done now.”

Her appointment comes in the wake of a Scottish Government audit that criticised the Tayside Joint Police Board — the body responsible for holding the chief constable to account — for failing to perform its duties effectively.

According to Justine, she’s prepared for the greater scrutiny this judgment will bring on her role.

“What I was used to down south in that respect was much more aggressive and much more rough and tumble, so I’m absolutely up for things being looked at in more detail,” she said.

“The bottom line for me is that we’re here to serve Tayside and people have the right to say ‘Hang on, could you do this better?’

“I think it’s really healthy and makes us a better organisation, so we won’t shy away from anything.”

Initially appointed deputy chief constable in 2008, Justine found herself taking on the role of acting chief constable after the retiral of Kevin Mathieson in August.

Looking back, she says, it was something of a shock to be thrust into the hot seat, but the task of getting to know a new area while in post proved to be one she was equal to.

“The policing is very different here compared to the likes of Manchester and Merseyside, where I’ve been previously,” she explained.

“They’re almost exclusively urban environments and while we do have some of that in Dundee itself, the areas outside it are fairly rural so it’s been an interesting learning curve in that respect.

“Tayside was totally new to me when I got here and it’s a stunning part of the world. I’m still driving to work every day from Auchterarder thinking, ‘wow.’”

As the mother of two young children, the move north was something she considered long and hard. Thankfully, the area is proving a hit with her seven-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son.

So much so, she says, that her daughter is picking up the Tayside twang.

“I think it’s obviously down to a stage in development because my son’s 10 and he’s not picking up the accent, but she’s got a real burr!

“They’re both really happy at school and they think it’s great up here too.”

As far as the nitty gritty of day-to-day police work is concerned, the focus is very much on continuing the hard work that has transformed the region’s crime statistics over the past year.

Recent figures showed the lowest crime rates for a decade and the thrust of the work to come will be towards developing the community-focused tactics that have proved so successful across the force.

“There’s so much great stuff goes on in Tayside already, my challenges really involve knitting all of those things together so I can sit here and feel comfortable that we’re delivering the same standards of service in every department,” Justine explained.

“Within that we’re looking to build up our community policing so it’s really strong and people know who their local police officers are and that they can talk to them and, also, that they care about them and are dealing with the stuff that matters.

“We’ve got really strong performance in terms of crime reduction and crime detection and that’ll always be a big part of what we do, but it’s also about these other things that make communities feel safer.

“What we want to do is work closely with communities and partners to address the things that matter to them.

“The big things that keep coming up are anti-social behaviour, dealing with the impact of alcohol and drugs, which sounds dead easy when it’s put like that, but of course, it isn’t.

“Those are the kind of things that cause real problems where people live.”

For Justine, being chief constable is not about making changes for changes’ sake though — she’s found that certain methods are working well.

Given another year like the one we’ve just had, it would be hard to disagree.

“It’s been really interesting finding where you can add value. There are some things I’ve seen which are done better elsewhere but, of course, there’s loads of things that are done better here,” she said.

“It’s taken me a while but I’m happy now that I can really see where I can work with the force and really see where we can take it to the next level.”