Civilianisation of police posts is beancounter-driven. There are other aspects of police aviation which probably looked good to the financiers at the time, but showed the ability to turn around and bite yer in the bum just when you least expected it:
article about "speeding cop" (oops - civvy)
I particularly noted the following quote:
"A spokesman for the WCAOU said: "As there are
no safety concerns (my italics), we can confirm Mr Kingston has returned to work as a fully operational member of the WCAOU."
You might think it appropriate to comment - I couldn't possibly. I do wonder, though, just how much extra it has cost the council-tax-payers of the area to cover the expense of maintaining police air cover during this whole sorry episode - freelance pilots, selecting and training new observers, refresher-training the convicted dangerous driver...