My policing journey started when I joined Northumbria Police in 2010 as a Special Constable and I had never really considered the police as a career. At the time I was working in retail management for a multinational retailer and had been doing this since I left university in 2004 after completing my master’s degree in management at Durham University. I found being a Special Constable was an exciting and rewarding role where you never knew what was going to happen next. Volunteering on a response team in a very busy area of Newcastle, I attended everything from domestics, burglaries, robberies, road collisions to sudden deaths. I found myself doing more and more shifts as a Special Constable and soon realised that I preferred policing to my full-time career and so in 2014 I became a full time Police Constable with Northumbria Police.
My time as a Police Constable provided me with some great opportunities and experiences that you simply cannot get in other careers. After completing my two-year probation period, I trained to become a blue light response driver, initial phase pursuit driver, Taser officer, and public order level 2 officer (riot police as we are commonly known!). I spent most of my time as a Police Constable on response policing responding to and dealing with 999 calls, helping people in their time of need. I even featured on a Sky TV show looking at the work of the police in the North East - who would have thought being a Police Officer would lead to 15 minutes of fame on the TV?
I spent some time on Newcastle City Centre neighbourhood team where my role was to work with the local community to address the issue of drug use and homelessness within the area. I found this a challenging but rewarding role, where I felt that I made some tangible improvements to the area where I worked. In between all of this I completed my exam to become a Sergeant and in 2019 I was temporarily promoted to Custody Sergeant, working in the force custody unit at Sunderland. In 2020 an opportunity then came up to join Cleveland Police as a permanent Sergeant and so I spent two years there as a Response Policing sergeant until I saw an advert for BTP who were taking on Sergeants at Newcastle.
June 2022 saw me join BTP Newcastle as a Response Sergeant covering the North East of the country which I found really enjoyable. The BTP environment was a lot less pressured than working in Home Office Policing and I felt that we had time to do a good job with incidents that we were called to. I very quickly found that BTP dealt with pretty much everything that you deal with in the Home Office police forces with some additional incidents such as railway trespassing, cable thefts, and railway fatalities added into the mix.
I was quite apprehensive about moving across at first as I knew BTP was a specialist force and wasn’t 100% sure about the types of things BTP dealt with. I had many thoughts including would I be allowed to keep my specialist skills such as response driving, Taser and Public Order? Will I be away from home for my training? Will there be opportunities to get promoted in the future?
The recruitment team were really helpful and supportive during my move across and I was able to keep all of my skills after I had completed my 2 week transferee course in London as well as refreshers for each of my skills. I have been able to use these skills and have been deployed on public order duties at events such as Notting Hill Carnival in London and football matches too. I really enjoy the variety and opportunities to work in other parts of the country too.
In 2022 I completed my Sergeant to Inspector exam and in 2024 I was promoted to Inspector and now work as a Duty Officer covering the whole of the Pennines Sub division for response policing incidents on a 24/7 shift rota. This role is a demanding role and has given me the opportunity to lead the initial response and oversight of a range of incidents including railway fatalities, serious assaults, domestic incidents, and an attempted murder. I try to spend as much time as possible out and about on patrol as I enjoy engaging with the public and arresting criminals as much as I did on day one. I find being a Duty Officer gives me the flexibility to visit stations all over the subdivision and so I get to meet officers and the public from all around the country.
I found the process to transfer to the force was smooth and well managed but did take a few months to complete due to the various checks that have to be done. I would recommend working for BTP to any experienced officer who fancies a new challenge in a different policing environment. Transferring across to BTP was a good decision for me as I have learned a lot of new skills and I have had opportunities to do several leadership development courses which will help me in my future career. I have a much better work/life balance working for BTP as well as lots of opportunities to learn new skills in areas such as major incident management and public order.
