Interview with a long serving retired police officer
involved in responding to a range of major incidents
Reflecting on the impact of these experiences, what helped and why, he said:
‘You just harden to it, you couldn’t have dealt with it if you didn’t. It was my responsibility never to talk about it and I didn’t. My attitude was I just had to get on with it. I was a Detective Sergeant in CID so I had to make sure my staff were okay when anything happened. I was in the military for 5 years; you get disciplined to it. You had to comfort the relatives especially if there were kiddies involved. If children were hurt then that would get to me, it made you feel like you wanted to get them, you wanted justice for the families.
It might surprise you but when you met people who had done really awful things you sometimes felt sorry for them, they were sad figures who had gone too far. What always helped was the camaraderie between us, we were all the same, you were together working as a team. We worked hard and played hard. My family were the ones who paid the price, I was never at home.’