Allan Hopkins Dorans (born 30 July 1955) is a

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

(SNP) politician who has served as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock since the 2019 general election. He is the vice dean of Ayr Guildry. Dorans was made a Companion of the Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in 1990 and a member of the

Chartered Management Institute The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) is a professional institution for management based in the United Kingdom. The major membership classes are ''Member'', ''Fellow'' - for those with significant expertise - and ''Companion'' - the most sen ...

(MCMI) in 2000.

Early life and career

Dorans was born in

Dailly Dailly ( gd, Dail Mhaol Chiarain) is a village in South Ayrshire, Scotland. It is located on the Water of Girvan, south of Maybole, and east of Old Dailly. "New Dailly", as it was originally known, was laid out in the 1760s as a coal-mining vil ...

, South Ayrshire, the son of Peter Dorans DCM and Agnes Dorans. He is the youngest of nine children. He was educated at

Carrick Academy Carrick Academy is a state-run secondary school, administered by South Ayrshire Council and situated in Maybole, South Ayrshire. It serves about 550 pupils, from the town of Maybole and the villages of Dalrymple, Crosshill, Kirkmichael, Straiton ...

Maybole Maybole is a town and former burgh of barony and police burgh in South Ayrshire, Scotland. It had an estimated population of in . It is situated south of Ayr and southwest of Glasgow by the Glasgow and South Western Railway. The town is bypass ...

, the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

and the

University of the West of Scotland The University of the West of Scotland ( gd, Oilthigh na h-Alba an Iar), formerly the University of Paisley, is a public university with four campuses in south-western Scotland, in the towns of Paisley, Renfrewshire, Paisley, Blantyre, South Lanar ...

, gaining a diploma in public service leadership. He joined the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

and reached the rank of detective inspector by the age of 28, serving with the force from 1972 to 1987. During that time he was a uniform response officer as a constable, sergeant and inspector. He also served as a detective in the rank of constable, sergeant and inspector, specialising in the investigation of the most serious crimes of rape, robbery and murder. He completed his career in the Metropolitan Police as an instructor at the Detective Training School at Hendon. The following year, he became a Personnel and Training Executive at the Rank Organisation, remaining there until 2000. From 2002 to 2003, he was a substitute teacher at

Cape Elizabeth High School Cape Elizabeth High School (CEHS) is a public high school in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, United States. It is one of six schools in Maine to have been named a National Blue Ribbon School multiple times by the U.S. Department of Education. Academics T ...

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

. Dorans was an area manager for the West of Scotland with SACRO, a leading Scottish community safety charity from 2003 to 2009. He was also managing director of West of Scotland Mediation Services from 2009 to 2013. Mr Dorans has been a lifelong volunteer and has volunteered as a befriender for those suffering from mental health issues, a school board member at

Belmont Academy Belmont Academy ( gd, Àrd-sgoil Bhelmont) is the largest secondary school in Ayr. The Academy is non-denominational and state-run by South Ayrshire Council. In 2008 the school transferred from the 48-year-old campus into a new building, which ...

, a volunteer at Ayr Hospital, a volunteer counsellor with the Ayrshire Council on Alcohol supporting those experiencing problems with alcohol,a prolific volunteer fund raiser for Cancer Research UK by undertaking challenging events including the New York Marathon , trekking in the Andes mountains to reach Machu Picchu and trekking to the peak of

Mount Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world: above sea level and ab ...

. For the last 20 years he has volunteered with Voluntary Action South Ayrshire (VASA) as a trustee and a Christmas Day volunteer providing Christmas dinner for the elderly and isolated elderly members of the community. He has also served as a director of VASA for many years and served for several years as the chair of the board of directors of that organisation. In 2020 he was inducted as an inaugural member of the Carrick Academy Hall of Fame.

Political career

Dorans was first elected to

South Ayrshire Council South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...

in 2012 for the SNP in Ayr West ward, then appointed in 2014 as SNP Group Leader; but he was defeated in 2017. He was selected as an SNP candidate in October 2019. On 12 December 2019, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, gaining the seat from the Conservatives. He was appointed as the Shadow SNP Spokesperson for Policing on 10 February 2021. He is a member of the Standards Committee, Privileges Committee and the

European Scrutiny Committee The European Scrutiny Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Following Britain's withdrawal from the European Union in January 2020 and the end of the transition period on 31 December 202 ...

. He is a leading campaigner for “Justice for Yvonne”, which is a campaign led by his former police colleague, John Murray, to bring to justice those responsible for the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot in the back and murdered outside the Libyan Peoples Bureau on 17 April 1984. Dorans raised the issue at

Prime Minister's Questions Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs, officially known as Questions to the Prime Minister, while colloquially known as Prime Minister's Question Time) is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom, currently held as a single session every W ...

in July 2020. On 22 February 2022 Dorans secured and led an adjournment debate on that subject in the House of Commons. On 7th December 2022 he again raised the subject of the murder of WPC Fletcher at Prime Ministers Questions with the recently elected Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who has agreed to meet with him to see how this matter may be taken forward.

Personal life

In 1979, he married Maureen Beeson; the couple have a son. He lists his recreations as

trekking Backpacking is the outdoor recreation of carrying gear on one's back, while hiking for more than a day. It is often an extended journey, and may involve camping outdoors. In North America tenting is common, where simple shelters and mountain h ...

and "undertaking challenging events to raise funds for charitable causes".

References

External links

* Living people Scottish National Party MPs UK MPs 2019–present Scottish National Party councillors Scottish police officers Metropolitan Police officers People from South Ayrshire 1955 births {{UK-MP-2019-stub