The Prodigal Cop

Triads on Home Ground

From CID to SB

Image: Thomas Nugent

'Back on the Beat ... eventually!

"Entering the HQ foyer, I stated my name and was led to a spartan interview room where my interviewer was already seated behind a small table with a neutral expression that already showed leakage of abject disinterest. My interview was best described as formal but non-committal. as he shuffled his papers into a bundle signalling not only that the interview was over, but the table was most decidedly bare, "We’re not recruiting at the moment.”

The Met (London’s Metropolitan Police) would, in my simple logic, have the greatest recurring recruitment need and it only took a couple of days to get an application sent off. Within a few days, the telephone rang, “It’s for you – it’s a policeman.” … not the Met, but Strathclyde. Head of Personnel's opening remarks were a revelation – a sincere apology and a request for a re-run. Retracing my steps it was my former Support Unit and ‘E’ Division boss now a Supt. and drafted in from 'C' Division for what was a casual chat rather than an interview, and his one and only question ...

“Which division do you want to go to?”

A third Letter of Appointment

'A' 226 A Div, Group 2, Stewart Street

"Do you think you'll do your thirty?"

Strathclyde Police 30 Years Certificate

'A' Div CID

Warrant Card on CID Confirmation

"It was January 1989, and just over a year since my return from Hong Kong, when I was shipped off to Cranstonhill, A(B) subdivision, as an 'Aide to the CID' on a six-month ‘apprenticeship’. Provided with a desk at the rear of the first-floor CID office gave me a full view of my new colleagues and a chance to settle into what to me was a Scottish ‘Daai Fong’, the main CID office."

Serious Crime Squad ('The Serious') - Operation ****

"After a year in CID, a message came down the line to report to the DI at Criminal Intelligence. Taking the lift from the HQ rear entrance in Holland Street, I exited at the fourth floor and worked my way round the CID Specialist Services corridor, arriving at the Force Criminal Intelligence Office (FCIO). Out of sight at the far end between the Fraud Squad and the fire exit, it was a metaphor for the small department little-known to the wider force at that time." Briefed with a new partner, we were now in 'The Serious'.

Op **** Office, Serious Crime Squad 1990

Major Triad Fraud Case

(Image: SWNS)

With Stevie & Peter IP Triad Expert

So Gaak Laan Haak Sei Wooi

(Scotland-based Black (Triad) Societies). Op **** opened a Pandora's box of UK-wide South East Asian crime gangs affiliated to Hong Kong's Triad societies. D/Supt Peter IP (RHKP's Head of Anti-Triad Bureau) was flown in as an expert witness for the London-based trials.

Postcard From Canada - 'Wish You Were Here' ?

Invitations to Canada & USA

Our names may have been on the 'Internationl Assocation of Asian Crime Investigators' (IAACI) invitation letter, but of course we didn't go. ACC's attended Calgary (1991) and Las Vegas (1992) to deliver Op **** presentations but at least one (Bert) sent us a postcard. However, no further invitations arrived.

Force Criminal Intelligence Office (FCIO)

Strathclyde Police FCIO Intelligence Office Staff

Happy at their work, my 'Intell' colleagues increased in number with seconded Divisional Intelligence Collator's just as the computers and back-record conversion dragged us into the last decade of the 20th Century.

SPC Tulliallan CID Course - Law Society Book Prize

(Image: SPC)

Detective Training (1/91)

Back to Tulliallan for six weeks of all things criminal, forensic and investigative, I was airbrushed into the photo given it was Ayshire DO (Ian) who took the Book Prize ... allegedly.

Promotion Photo

DSs Office, FCIO, H CID

DS Promotion 1991

Moving all of 3m from the main FCIO office to the DS's Room across the corridor.

Captured on the Job with the Latest in Mobile Tech

Operation ******

"By the time I was called round to the senior management end of the ‘H’ CID corridor, Op ****** had already been running with SB. Given the potential of compromise, the 'Serious' took over close protection for a loosely termed 'supergrass'. A bizarre several weeks with neighbour 'Trigger' as we became 'tooled-up' social workers, with the latest in (not so) mobile technology."

Back to School

Strathclyde University Business School's inaugural and over-subscribed 6 year part-time (LLB) course was self-funding. Despite available Force funding my course was deemed "too expensive" and then I was "too old" for full-time funding. However, a 'bonus prize' of a promotion panel did provide some funding assisting through salary.

Shift Inspector 'D' Div (Kirkintilloch)

Promotion Photo, 1993

(Image: Strathclyde IB)

Former Kirkintilloch Police Office, 'D' Division

(Image: Creative Commons, Leslie Barrie)

"Arriving at 'Kirkie', the subdivision’s main office in September 1993, I first met the sergeants and immediately found a safe pairs of hands including the shift sergeants at Bishopbriggs and Muirhead. Group 4 were a joy to work with as well the civilian staff who kept everyone in order."

Duty Officer, Baird Street Police Office, 'D' Division

Baird Street OD

Occasionally undertaking 'Duty Officer' (OD) at 'D' HQ was a relentless shift of prisoner processing, cell checks, and dealing with anything an everything from control room calls to warrants, firearms issue, Casualty Surgeon and solicitor vists, prisoner escorts and being the 'OIC safe'. However, I still preferred the unknowns of operational policing, until yet another project - Transfer of Muiread Office to 'N' Div.

'H' SCS - Back to the 'SERIOUS'

'H' CID SCS DI's Room Door Sign

Practically three years to the day, I was back at 'The Serious' in 1996 as DI that in turn fulfilled the prophecy of the DCS, Head of H CID Specialist Services, three years earlier. Along with two fellow DSs we all returned as DI's. Assisting Divisional CID on Category 'A' Murders & returning the Serious to operating pro-active lateshifts was the job. Numerous long runnng MI's were contrasted with providing a spontaneous reactive lateshift resource to support divisions with reduced CID coverage and to act on hot intelligence. Then there were the 'internal' and 'external' enquiries which meant 'riding shotgun' with a Det. Supt. on various missions.

Lateshift Proactive Recoveries

Uzi (replica)

Used in Robberies

UK MIlitary SA-80

Ammo & paramilitary uniforms seized

Similar Images : Creative Commons, John Torch II / Steve Dock, OGL / Dave Jenkins, OGL)

"We were happy to be moving to a new state-of-the-art building. So, all was good, until that is, the knee-jerk idea that with the stroke of a pen threatened to wipe out our brand name. The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad had recently hit the headlines, and not in a good way. Like a ripple effect, knees were jerking across other metropolitan forces as if contagion was imminent. Whilst most were permanently contaminated with name changes, Strathclyde beat a hasty 'one-eighty' from their proposed change ... but not before I’d saved the ‘Serious Crime Squad Detective Inspectors’ door sign for posterity." The 'Serious' would survive a while longer, but the 'ideas' factory would eventually win the day for this and other 'squad' brands.

DIs Room at HQ CID

New SCS 'Digs' at 'G' HQ

Acting DCI - 'P' Div (Motherwell)

'P' Divsion HQ, Motherwell

(Image: Creative Commons, Ross4587)

Yet another 'Super Division' was about to be born through the marriage of 'P' and 'N' Divisions. So, the short term DCI vacany at 'P' was only a short five-month 'gig' for me - what could go wrong? Well, one of three MIs within that time would be career-changing; a failed promotion panel, a criminal justice 'cause celebre' for 18 years and would help promote a change in Scots Law.

Back to the Future - 'E' Division CID

DI - London Road Police Office

Image: Thomas Nugent

DIs Room, Shettleston

Support DI - London Road

Image: Thomas Nugent

DI - Baird Street Police Office

SCDEA & The NIM

SCDEA Badge

(Image: SCDEA)

NCIS - UK National Intelligence Model

(Image: NCIS)

"The request for a DI secondment to the SCDEA had come through the ACPO(S) Crime Committee to head up a national project team. Joined by DSs from L&B and Central Scotland and a DC from Tayside. We all had 'intell' backgrounds, which was just as well, given our task was implementation of the UK’s first ever National Intelligence Model, aka ‘The NIM’."

"We were in the NIM project room at Tulliallan in 2001 when one of the team, said there was some commotion around the TV set in the communal coffee room. Right at that moment, I received a call on my mobile suggesting I get to a TV right away. Heading downstairs we sat transfixed on a live US TV broadcast from New York. It was 9 September 2001, what was later described by the ‘9/11 Commission of Enquiry’ as the greatest-ever US intelligence failure." We were at least getting the UK's 'house' in order.

NYC Twin Towers, USA 9/11

Image: Michael Foran

9/11 Twin Towers Commemorative Pin

(Image: Lee Wilson, Strathclyde & PBA)

VIPER ... yet another project

"Like the NIM, this was also a long project and long overdue, so my former Op **** 'neighbour' and I had every incentive to get this over the line. It would take a couple of years whilst balancing the SIO day job and stretch into my next role, but the good news was we would be piloting it in my own division at London Road."

Traditional Police Line-Up

Image: IMDB

VIPER Video ID Parade Logo

Image: WYP

'The Dark Side'

Official Strathclyde Police Promotion Group Photo, 8 Aug 2003

"It was 2003, and following an internal enquiry at HQ my 'missing' Personnel file was found and resurrected (the book has the full story) déjà vu struck yet again. Not for the first time DI colleague, Alison, passed on a career-changing message that had come down the line to eventually reach me at Baird Street CID."

“You’re on the move, ... DCI 'H' CID."

(Image: Strathclyde IB)

Scottish SB Conference 2004 Booklet

"In what would become my longest role, SB kept me and my colleagues busy in the fast-evovling world of CT operations and intelligence. There is little that can be mentioned beyond a few anonymised examples of the type of work undertaken initially on domestic affairs before International Counter terrorism (ICT) became the new challenge.

We all had to leave it to the occasional media soundbite from our partners as to the volume of terrorist plots ongoing, the number thwarted, the arrests made and the various means by which they were achieved." (Image: ACPOS/CTIU(S))

Bulgarian Police Pin Badge

Bulgarian Ministry of Interior Academy

Bulgaria - SOBT

"Visiting former soviet block and pre-EU Bulgaria, I watched with EU & US CT colleagues from a ‘killing house’ viewing platform as the 'Specialised Force for Combating Terrorism' (SOBT) ran a hostage rescue exercise."

Final Day as an AFO - From PC to DCI - 23 yrs Over & Out

Outdoor Pistol Range

Last Firearm Refresher Training Day at FTC

'6 rounds in your own time...'

2005 G8 (Prestwick Airport)

At the Red Carpet G8 Leaders Reception at Prestwick Airport on Arrival of US President G W Bush, 2005

"My ‘office’ for that first week of July was the elaborate tented village on the grassed airside area, comprising connected marquees with police, airport staff, and a large media area with large TV screens beaming out live 24-hour news. The fleet of arriving Jumbo jets would disgorge their respective Heads of State onto the red carpet for a formal welcome as they ran the gauntlet of First Minister, musical band, local schoolchildren and the world’s media before boarding helicopters or CP road convoys to the Gleneagles venue, and all while the airport continued to operate as normal." (Image: Eddie Allison)

With DI (PIK) at the 2005 G8 Leaders Reception, Prestwick Airport

US Secret Service $ Clip

G8 Commemorative Pin

Under the watchful gaze of the (US Secret Service) 'Men in Black'. Image: Eddie Allison

"An SB DS who was liaising with the international leaders’ security teams called me with an ‘issue’. President Putin’s CP team had informed her that he would not travel by helicopter and rejected the alternative VIP convoy plan." .... so we found a quiet corner for impromptu negotiations."

"Whilst initially forceful, if not somewhat indignant, they eventually accepted our equally forceful but polite insistence on the armed CP convoy plan that was on the table." ... job done, until ...

"I was called back. Thinking there was a further problem, I arrived to find our smiling adversaries bearing gifts ... [t]hey had clearly raided the Kremlin gift shop prior to leaving the motherland."

Further outstanding G8 work was undertakein behind the scenes and is covered in the book, but suffice to say, yet another outstanding DS would later attend HM the Queen's garden party at Holyrood in recognition of her work.

Moscow Kremlin Paperweight

Russian Vodka Shot Glass

Russian State Pin Badge

Glasgow Airport Terror Attack 2007

Glasgow Airport Terminal Building Bombing, 2007

(Image: Creative Commons, Thomas Nugent)

As soon as the Precurser event at London's 'Tiger Tiger' nightclub was reported we were on alert and 12-hours shifts - just in case. Though unknown at the time it did indeed come our way. Busy time, as the UK went to a 'critical' terror threat. Pleased to recommend a colleague for well-deserved commendation for 'behind the scenes' dedication to duty.

Washington DC

Following a Glasgow Airport Attack presentation at the European Association of AIr & Seaport Police (EAASP) conference in 2007, an invite came in from the international Ports organisation in the US (IASP) to repeat the presentation as a keynote address to their 2008 conference.

InterPort Police ID

InterPort Police Pin Badge

Washington DC - InterPort Police Certificate

Counter Terrorism Exercising (CTX) - Joint Intelligence group (JIG)

CT Exercise Op Black Rain News Headline

CTX - 'Black Rain'

"A simulated terror attack on an oil rig, (Exercise Black Rain) over three days in 2009 required deployment of the 'JIG' and culminated with the SBS being sent in to identify and neutralise the threat, rescue hostages, and regain control of the facility. (Image: DC Thomson)

Don't Ask For Whom The Bell Tolls ...

"I was in my thirty-third year as a cop, but at fifty-two years of age and physically fit without a single sick day for the last twenty-five years, I had not yet considered slippers a desirable Christmas gift."

"We hadn’t crossed paths since our time in the 'Serious', but his detective career had significantly progressed to the point that, as of that very morning, he became a newly promoted DCI. The smart suit and groomed appearance were all the corroboration that was required as he arrived at my office door. Following mutual greetings, he explained his unexpected visit straight from his promotion parade,

'I’m your replacement'."

"I wasn't the only Chief Inspector 'on wheels' that morning - even departmental management were unaware."

Final Farewells

House of Lords Letter on Recognition of Retirement, 2010

ACC National Coordinator PROTECT Commendation

A Letter and a Commendation arrived in the closing days of my final and longest posting. Togther with farewell gifts from valued and respected colleagues the first chapter of my career was now written as I signed off on 22/01/2010.