One of Bernard Hogan-Howe's greatest pleasures as chief constable of Merseyside police was riding through the crowds on horseback at the Grand National. It gave him the chance to pursue his passion for horse-riding while also soaking up the very particular atmosphere of Aintree.

In five years running the Merseyside force, Hogan-Howe stamped his mark as a tough and efficient chief, reducing crime by 29% and antisocial behaviour by 25% through what he called a "total war on crime". He cut so-called backroom staff and increased the number of frontline officers by 9%, or 360 officers. All of which made him the favoured choice of the Tories to be the next Metropolitan police commissioner.

When he left Merseyside in 2009, the force had risen in public confidence rankings from 42nd out of 43 to the top of the list, an achievement that he believed fulfilled his desire to make Merseyside the best force in the country.

As well as tackling administrative issues such as the time it took to answer phone calls, he led his officers as they investigated some of the most shocking crimes of the last 10 years, including the racist killing of Anthony Walker and the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, both of which highlighted the area's problems with racism, guns and gangs.

The Rhys Jones investigation, in particular, was a success for detectives who recruited a teenage supergrass as their main prosecution witness. The boy was the first teenager to get total immunity from prosecution for his crimes as a result of being the star witness in a trial.

Sheffield-born Hogan-Howe, 53, a former assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan police, has an MA in law from the University of Oxford, a diploma in applied criminology from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the University of Sheffield.

His popularity with the Conservatives both at City Hall and in government saw him catapulted into Scotland Yard as temporary deputy commissioner after the sudden departure of Sir Paul Stephenson in July.

He had arrived back in London from Merseyside in 2009 to take up a job with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. Leaving Merseyside, he said at the time, was as much for personal reasons as anything: his wife had lived in London throughout his five-year tenure in Liverpool because of her job, and they wanted to live in the same city again.

His eyes have been on the top job at Scotland Yard for some time and he applied two years ago when it went to Stephenson.

Some senior officers find his direct approach verging on rudeness, and he is likely to ruffle feathersHis views will be controversial to some. Hogan-Howe was openly critical of the health and safety prosecution of the Metropolitan police over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, saying it was not in the public interest and left the police unreasonably restricted in exercising their duty.

At HMIC he was responsible for a review into undercover policing, in the aftermath of the Mark Kennedy affair, and the report is due to be published in the near future.