Labour’s Andy Dunbobbin has taken the vacant Police and Crime Commissioner role in North Wales after a nail-biting run-off.

He won with 98,034 overall votes defeating Conservative rival Pat Astbury by 7,885 votes after second preference ballots were added in.

Speaking in Connah’s Quay, where the results were announced, he said: “I take this role seriously.

“I understand I will be measured against my manifesto pledges by the people of North Wales.

“I’m very much looking forward to starting this work from now.”

After being sworn in by police area returning officer Colin Everett, Mr Dunbobbin had a brief chat with chief executive of the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner Stephen Hughes.

Work will start from Monday this week on putting those manifesto pledges into action.

In some ways Mr Dunbobbin was an outsider for the position, given his relatively new ascension to the Police and Crime Panel, which pores over what the PCC does.

His rival Mrs Astbury is chair of the panel and Plaid Cymru’s candidate Ann Griffith is a former deputy PCC.

After the initial round of voting Mrs Astbury led by a little more than 6,000 votes from Labour’s Andy Dunbobbin.

Mrs Astbury polled 75,472 votes across the North Wales counting centres to Mr Dunbobbin’s 69,459.

Losing out by just 1,783 votes was third-placed Plaid Cymru candiate Ann Griffith, who many had tipped to follow-on from her party colleague Arfon Jones, who stood down for this election.

Ms Griffith said she was “absolutely gutted” to have lost out” at the first hurdle.

Lisa Wilkin of the Liberal Democrats secured 10,149 votes and Independent candidate Mark Young polled 15,907.

It left Mrs Astbury and Flintshire county councillor Andy Dunbobbin slugging it out for second preference votes from the ballot papers of the three defeated candidates.

First round results in full:

• Mark Young – Independent: 15,907

• Andy Dunbobbin – Labour: 69,459

• Lisa Wilkins – Liberal Democrats: 10,149

• Pat Astbury – Conservatives: 75,472

• Ann Griffith – Plaid Cymru: 69,672

Turnout: 46.08% (+5.26%)

Second preference votes:

• Andy Dunbobbin – 28,575

• Pat Astbury – 14,677

Total votes:

• Andy Dunbobbin – 98,034

• Pat Astbury – 90,149