Me and The Metropolitan Police

Part One

Introduction

I had grown up in Chalk Farm, North West London surrounded by police officers as my poor family home was next to a block of flats, Bridge House that was occupied by police families and I played with some of the children that lived there. Our home was also diagonally opposite to the C10 Scotland Yard Stolen Car Squad offices and garages under which was situated the tobacconists shop of which I had became manager after leaving school, and I thus got to know a few of the C.I.D. officers from their upstairs C10 offices as they used to come in to buy their cigarettes and sweets.

My first impressionable and not particularly pleasant encounter with uniformed police had happened when I was about 13 years old. I used to earn extra pocket money by selling newspapers on Sunday’s on a pitch just inside Chalk Farm Underground Station that was  diagonally opposite to my home. One Sunday morning I was mugged by an elder boy and his sister who had a large Alsatian dog on the lead. He threatened to stab me and set his dog on me if I didn’t give them all the money, which I did. As I was handing the money over I noticed a bearded gentleman standing by the nearby public underground phone booth which he then proceeded to use and I found out later that he was a newspaper reporter who had just happened to be there at the time and upon witnessing what had happened had phoned his newspaper to report what he had witnessed and only after that did he then phone the police to report the crime, and worse of all he did nothing to help except after the muggers had run away, he tried to get information from me to use in his story. This went against all I had learnt about helping those in need and it taught me perhaps the true nature of newspaper reporters and their ilk.

The police arrived in their marked police car and they didn’t seem to be that interested in going after the muggers even after I had given their description and told the officers the direction they had fled to. I recognised one of the police officers as living in the police flats next to my home and he and his fellow officer then drove me to nearly Camden Lock where he took me down to the canal bank and asked me questions. I told him what had happened, and although I didn’t go to Sunday School nor sang in the church chior, I always tried to tell the truth but he had a big smirk on his face and he basically called me a liar and told me that he thought that I was working with the robbers and that if I didn’t tell him the truth then I would get into more trouble than I already was in! I think I must have turned white with shock and I didn’t understand what was happening or why a police officer, who I was taught to respect was treating me like I was a liar and a thief and I just kept repeating to him the truth about what had happened and eventually he then seemed to give up and accept that what I was telling him was the truth and we then walked back to the police car and they drove me home.

My other not so pleasant encounter with the police happend when I was driving with my wife beside me shortly before I was due to start at Hendon Police College when we were stopped by a police car in the London Docks area on our way to visit friends. After asking me what we were doing in that area and following my reply, the officer claimed that I had been driving slowly up and down that road 4 or 5 times and he demanded to know ‘what we were up to’? What he claimed was a lie, and after he’d checked my drivers documents he said, ‘Okay you can go’. Fear then began to set in as I already had received my starting date for Hendon Police College and I was petrified that somehow my getting stopped by police would affect everything, and I asked him for reassurance that my being stopped wouldn’t affect my joining the police, and he told me that my being stopped wouldn’t be recorded anywhere, not that I trusted him as I knew he had already lied about the reasons for stopping me!

I was determined that when I became a police officer that I would remain honest and tell and write the truth at all times, particularly to members of the public, whether criminals or not. These steadfast basic rules allowed me, using the knowledge of the law that I was soon to learn at Hendon Police College to successfully deal with the many persons that I came into contact with as a police officer, and also to give evidence in many court cases that I was involved in without fear of contradiction, and which led to my never having lost a court case where I had been the arresting or reporting officer.

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Train Guard to Hendon Police College

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At Battersea and We Leave

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Thatcher and The Miner’s Strike

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Part 2 – At Chiswick, the Thief Taker

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On Foot Patrol   

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Working for Special Branch, SO11 and M15

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Tragedy and the Funny Side   

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Famous People and Police Driving

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Awards and Courses

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Police Racism & Recording The Abuse   

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I Take On The Police and Win & Doctors of the Mind

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Still Hounded!

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