Bas Javid

Bas Javid: Why I joined the police

There’s no such thing as a typical week in policing and this last one was no different. It started on a high and ended, tragically, on the lowest of lows. I’ve been asked recently why I joined the police — what or who inspired me. My first answer is: Lieutenant Carl Downing. He was my divisional officer in the Navy and one day, though I went on to be the most unlikely copper you could ever meet, he turned to me and asked: ‘Have you thought about the police? You’d be great at it.’ I remember thinking: where did that come from? Nonetheless, five years later I found myself signing up. Or perhaps my career began earlier, with the Javid brothers’ crime-busting gang. Our gang had just two members, Sajid and me, and back when we were still in primary school we’d circle the neighbourhood on our bikes, communicating by walkie-talkie, looking for crimes to report. Sajid is my older brother but, as I like to remind him, I was the leader of the gang and by far the most street-smart. It’s fashionable to criticise the police these days, but to anyone considering it as a career I’d say: do it. There’s no other job like it. It’s hard but it’s satisfying. We believe in the oath we take, to serve the Queen ‘with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality’. Above all, we’re a family.

When I was 16, I swapped the bike for a motorbike and it’s still the way I like to relax. Last week, in the last of the summer sunshine, I drove to Eastbourne with friends. In one way biking makes me feel young, in another it’s an awful reminder of age. It’s my big five-o in a few months and as I put my bike away for the winter I felt my back and shoulders ache.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER