So. Farewell then, Sir Stephen House. A career comes to an end ingloriously but, not insignificantly, on his terms and timing.
Merging Scotland’s regional forces into one was always going to bring issues and, if there’s one thing you can say about House, he does not shirk a challenge.
Massive budget pressures – £11 million of savings for the 2015/16 financial year are needed despite £46.5 million having already been slashed – coupled with a contrived, populist SNP policy of keeping officer numbers at 17,234 only made the job more tricky.
Yet his bullish style, as perfect as it might have initially seemed for such a tough job, ended up demolishing much of the china shop that is Scotland’s justice system.
He refused to accept that rolling out the “Strathclyde model” across the whole country demoralised officers and confused communities.
He failed to acknowledge a stop and search policy, which if used properly can do wonders tackling the scourge of violent weapons on our streets, creates trust problems with young people when they are frisked for no reason other than arbitrarily imposed targets.
Worst of all, he hung one of his own officers out to dry in the wake of the tragic deaths of Lamara Bell and John Yuill in their car off the M9 by cowardly trying to dodge the blame and pre-empt an inquiry into his control room system.
Sir Stephen did great work to tackle domestic violence and is not to blame for every problem to befall Police Scotland, which still carries on with officers doing often thankless tasks to keep us safe.
But he had to go. Too many things went wrong on his watch as he refused to accept the responsibility and stuck his fingers in his ears when it mattered most.