|
|
 |
| |
| Swift Stevens, Lord and old-fashioned
cop |
From 11+ failure to Britain’s top cop and
peerage – Sir John Stevens has travelled a long
way, writes Gerald Isaaman
Not for the Faint-Hearted: My Life Fighting Crime by John
Stevens,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £18.99
|
Sir John in his private plane
Sir John on his retirement day
The wreckage of the car Princess Diana was travelling in
when she was killed – Sir John is still investigating
her death
|
ON the beat in Tottenham Court Road, where he made his first
arrest, and running the CID at Kentish Town, is where John Stevens
learnt to be a good copper, one respected in the ranks and by the
public at large.
He failed his eleven plus exam, failed to become an airline pilot
because of his eye sight and grew up never knowing his natural father,
an aircraft engineer named Vickery, who disappeared before he was
one.
Yet he rose through the ranks to become Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan
Police Commissioner, one of the most arduous policing posts in the
world, emerged as a life peer and, at 63, is still engaged in major
investigations, such as the death of Princess Diana.
It obviously pays to be agile at sport and six foot four inches
in height to become a policeman. Indeed, he was known as Swifty
Stevens in his early days as a detective because he refused to waste
time and be bogged down with paper work.
And though he gives away no giant secrets in this engaging autobiography,
apart from his blistering row with Home Secretary David Blunkett,
the sheer determination and enthusiasm of the man to catch the crooks
and protect the public radiates throughout his considerable career.
He admits his faults – he has an awful temper and is not exactly
forensic when it comes to absorbing detail – yet long before
and during his five years as Commissioner the underlying principle
that guided him was one of fairness and justice, even if it turned
out a little rough around the edges at times.
He restored faith in the Met that had been so scandalised by corruption
so often that morale was at rock bottom when he took over, raised
its numbers to 30,000 and pioneered new ways of reducing crime such
as closed-circuit surveillance of hot spots and, in his earlier
days, ran the first ever supergrass informer.
And he tells his remarkable story – let’s hope there is
more to come later — with an obvious delight and humility that
is unsoured by a tainted system he forever wanted to reform. Those
early days themselves are a wonder.
Despite the blisters, he loved, aged 20, being on the beat in Tottenham
Court Road.
“I shall never forget walking out on my own for the first time,”
he records. “There I was, with my whistle and truncheon, thinking,
Wow! If anything happens, I’m going to have to deal with it.
“When people came up to me and asked for help, I realised how
much they were relying on my presence and support. I felt that simply
by being there I was doing something for the community.”
But the naïve constable soon got bloodied dealing with gun-wielding
gangsters before taking over the 30-strong crime squad at Kentish
Town, where one of his detectives was Norwell Noz Roberts, the first
black policeman in London, who styled himself Nozzer the Cozzer,
the High-flying Rozzer.
“The police station itself was a dump – a grim Victorian
building and one of the last to contain what was known as a ‘tank’
– one big cell that took all the drunks,” he writes. “The
stench that emanated from there at weekends was unbelievable.”
And the area had its own arrogant villains, who on one occasion
ambushed the crew of an undercover Q car and locked them in the
loo at a Somers Town pub.
“The regulars thought this a great laugh,” writes Stevens.
“But when I came in to the office next morning and heard what
had happened, I took a different view: this was serious business.
“They’d taken us on, and I decided that this was not going
to happen again.
“That evening, and the next, I took the entire office staff
down to the pub and infested the bar, some of us buying a mean half-pint,
the rest nothing. ‘Don’t drink,’ I told my detectives.
To the publican I said –‘I want to know who locked our
people in. Unless you tell me, we’ll be coming in every night
and we’ll ruin your business’.”
The strategy worked. “That little episode set the scene: the
office liked it – the whole of the station liked it –
and from that moment we had an incredible run of success.”
So did Stevens, the tough, natural. honest copper who earned 27
commendations for bravery, went on missions round the world, faced
real danger in Northern Ireland, and today has earned himself the
distinctive title Baron Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, wherever that
is. We now need to hear more from him about the underworld of police
and politicians in particular. |
|
Get to work on your tannin
BORDEAUX winemakers – long regarded as the world’s greatest
– are in trouble. Government health campaigns and strict enforcement
of French drink driving laws are causing a dramatic decrease in French
wine consumption.
FULL STORY
It all comes down to cash
AFTER confessing to not being able to swim the other week, I was deluged
with offers of help.
FULL STORY
|
