Rocking the Boat

I’m so excited for this episode as I get to speak to former Metropolitan Police Officer, Paul Wilson about life on the beat & the challenges he faced being black in what some of us may deem, an institutionally racist organisation in London. 

 Paul released his personal memoir ‘Rocking the Boat’ which you can purchase here

 Lean in & listen intently as it’s an interview that’s not to be missed. 

Enjoy!

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Transcript

 E79 - Rocking the Boat

Sun, Jan 28, 2024 9:57AM • 1:34:03

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

black, officers, worked, talking, change, boston, scotland yard, police station, police, paul, brixton, london, police officers, superintendent, living, bristol, met, happened, recognise, lambeth

00:00

Oh, guys, I can't wait, as I've just said in my introduction for this interview that I've got with Paul Wilson, who used to be a senior police officer in the Met, and I'm so glad to have him here today. So welcome, Paul, thank you for joining my life, not yours on my podcast.

00:16

Thank you, Tina. It's a pleasure to be here.

00:18

And it's been a long time. So listeners, Paul, and I go back a while. I mean, it seems to be that I seem to know all the people that I interview with here, but I've known Paul through another friend of mine and he's he's retired now from the Met but I thought it'd be really good to give us an insight because we know that Matt is in a lot of turmoil. But I want to go right back to the roots of Paul and get a little bit on what it used to be involved in and what his thoughts are now and finally talk about his personal memoir called rocking the boat which I will put in my podcast notes for everybody has to go out and buy. So Paul, I really want to start with your roots really and family because you know I heard on another podcast and and stuff that you sort of grew up in Lincolnshire to tell us about your family, your father and your mother and stuff because it's quite an interesting background I think

01:08

um, yeah, well, it's certainly different isn't it? You don't get many Lincolnshire people on your podcast I'm sure

01:17

people don't even know where Lincolnshire is

01:19

true. East Midlands if you draw a line kind of across from Leicester to the right of Leicester, you'll eventually come to Lincolnshire so it's kind of on the coast the wash Boston, I think some people might have heard of Boston, because particularly because of its standard, not

01:40

Massachusetts, people not Massachusetts, because I've got a lot of people in America. So ya know, certainly, Paul, let's let's just rewind to games. I think both of us had a little bit of a coughing fit then. Tell us about Lincolnshire because that's where you grew up. And a lot of people don't know where it is. Yes.

01:58

Lincolnshire, dry line from Leicester or Leicestershire to the right. And you'll come to Lincolnshire, so it's about 140 miles north of London. It's a very rural county rural Indians only about 400,000 people live there. So it's sparsely populated. The second largest county in the UK, I think next to Yorkshire. But not many people visit is very agricultural and you unless you have a reason to visit one of the major towns, Lincoln, Boston, Stanford Grantham, you're not going to go to Lincoln. You're not going to go so no, it's it's not a place to go unless you've really got the need to go there actually, but I spent Christmas in Lincoln's the city of Lincoln actually and I would recommend anyone to visit Lincoln it is kinda is a beautiful is a beautiful city. It's like beautiful. Cathedral to the hill is about small Dickensian roads and lots of niche shops and boutiques and bars and restaurants and it's very clean and you don't see any charity shops and it's really is a nice city to visit

03:19

I thoroughly recommend it. What's the property price like

03:22

the property price is well anywhere compared to London is is going to be cheaper is going to be cheaper in London, actually but if you if you if you're living in Arca so the house I rented for example, I think it might have gone for around. It was a it was a three bedroom house. I think it might have gone for around 400 400,000 pounds. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. For for for a full bedroom, three bedroom house in the heart of the city on top of everything. And I mean, the bars and the restaurants and the Cathedral and the castle. It's lovely. It's lovely. Anyone that's been considered I wasn't born in Lincoln.

04:04

Yeah. Tell us where you were born in how your parents ended up there. Yeah, I

04:08

was born in a town called Boston. Yeah, which is about 30 miles south of Lincoln, on the coast or near near the coast, just above the wash. So the reason I was kind of born there was because a it's very flat. And be the USA force sent a lot of its personnel to a local RAF camp called East Kirkby. And the reason they did and the reason they did that was it was you know, post cold war, or we're just coming into the Cold War actually not post cold war just going into the Cold War with Russia and that they needed to set up spying rockets and stuff like that. So they needed a Royal Air Force camp in the UK. So they chose one of the one of the locations they chose was RAF East Kirkby, which is about 10 miles from Boston. And my mum lived in a small village who Carrington called Carrington. You know, Englishwoman very rural environment, she lived on a small farm.

05:22

To be clear English, white woman, English, white

05:25

woman, English white woman lived on a small farm worked in, in nearby Boston. And anyway, long story short, a number of the personnel that the American sent over were African Americans, you can imagine, you know, 50, African Americans converging on this small kind of rural environment of East Kurt way, and the surrounding villages. And of course, these personnel were all in their kind of early 20s, late teens

06:02

and look dapper and sexy, and they got in your mom got seduced, oh my god. So naturally,

06:08

all these young guys, and they brought over their American cars, they were getting paid so much money. But what I mean entry, I thought was interesting. We are talking late 1950s. Here, we are talking in segregation in the United States. They're talking lack of slash no opportunities for African Americans. And suddenly, all these young guys, these are all these young African Americans land in England, in this kind of little rural setting. And not only is there no segregation, the actual population takes a real interest in them. And he's friendly towards them.

06:51

Let me just delve into that a little bit more, though, more, even though we didn't have segregation. The underlying racism in that time was disgusting, because you would still get wouldn't you know, blacks allowed. And they did segregate. They didn't want people coming together. Because interestingly, and this is what I mean, we're going to delve deeper into those statements. Because, interestingly, Lenny Henry is just well, it was before Christmas, but I've binge watched it last week. He he did a programme for three different birds. Have you seen it? Because if you haven't, you need to watch it on BBC iPlayer. I have. Yeah. So that wasn't that you see that as a typical example, even though it's all around the Wind Rush time, blacks come over here promised the promised land, you know, and, and then they go into these areas, and I can't remember what area that was. Was that up north somewhere?

07:38

It was kind of it was the Midlands or

07:41

Midlands or is Yorkshire, they will despicable. But I get what you mean, in America. It was terrible. But here, it was underlying, and it was really sorry, carry on. But I just wanted to add that. But let me

07:53

tell let me tell you the difference between what happened with the Windrush community and what happened with the African Americans. The African Americans that came over, you must remember were army or US Air Force personnel, for starters. Yeah. Okay, for starters, and they were not many of them. There were not many of them. They were not settled here. They didn't live in the community. They didn't work alongside white people. So there were some quite significant differences, actually. And I think that's why, in some ways, they were considered to be kind of different, but they were not considered to be a threat. They were not considered a novelty, then do you think they were a novelty? They were not going to live here, though. It was always known that we're gonna go back. They were just doing a tour of duty here. They were men. There were no women or no children, that we're all men. Yeah. We're all of a particular age. They're all considered to be kind of cool. Yeah, they had the big American cars. They had their jazz music. So they kind of quickly endeared themselves to the local population. Right. Right. And I think that is the real real difference. But I'm not suggesting one minute they didn't meet racism, because they did in the local dancehalls. In the local town, though, was an element of racism. But by and large, by and large, it wasn't as acute as the racism that confronted the kind of the Windrush generation, which is

09:39

our whole argument right now, just as tell my listeners, the reason why this is really important for us as black people as well, and any listener listening abroad. At the moment, there is a massive, massive case we've got over here with our post office, which will be the US whatever your air mail is, the post office is seen as a real bridge She's tradition and institution who basically almost ripped off people that were running post offices, particularly in the north of this country at the time. Now, this has gone all the way to court because of a drama that has just come out on TV over here. However, what's so disgusting about this? Whilst it was bad, what happened to people in the post office, people from the Windrush are still waiting for compensation from the government and then have not got half as much airplay. Would you agree with that, Paul? And

10:31

so Absolutely,

10:32

there's this dichotomy at the moment, you've got like a, we've got the post office is white institution, etc, etc. And then you've got the Windrush where people came into this country almost conned to come here with due compensation, because some of them have been asked to go back. It's just disgusting, how black people have been treated, and still to be treated, which we will talk about in the Met. However, this is not quite as much traction. It's just really bizarre. I thought I'd just get that out there. Yeah,

10:59

I know. It's an interesting comparison. And I think it hasn't got as much traction the winter it hasn't got as much traction is it doesn't tick all the boxes in the way that the post office does. They the victims in the post office were white, predominantly white, not not all white, not all white, Asian, a lot of Asian people, but they were middle class. They were middle class. They were based in many of them based in small towns and rural settings as well. So again, they were like more likely to fall into that kind of kind of mainstream media interest. Daily Mail readership. Yes. Because we've got a sub postmaster in the village and he's really nice and daddy died. And how could this happen to them? So in that way, I think it ticked big box actually in in attracting the interest of the nation in a way that nothing else has done recently. Yeah,

11:57

yeah, totally agree with that. But so coming back to you then so dad comes over well, not dad at this point. But you know, he's come over from the US any any meet your mother? Yeah. My

12:08

mother in I believe in a in a dance hall in Boston, actually, a very famous dance hall called the glider drone. Right. And it's, and it's famous because it hosted even though Boston is quite a remote town. For some reason. Boston has always had an interest. The people of Boston divorce has been interested in soul music, Tamla, Motown, that kind of stuff. And jazz. So yeah, it also attracted a lot of black groups. Even as a boy growing up in Boston, I would see reggae bands, and that coming to Boston, and they were always kind of welcome. And you know, a lot of the Motown acts came over to but anyway, so we had this big lighter Drum Dance Hall, and it held probably probably a couple 1000 people. Wow. Yeah. It was huge. You we're not talking about small nightclub here. We're talking about a big a big ballroom. Yeah, it was a big age. And

13:13

I can picture it,

13:14

I can picture it. Yeah. And so yeah, mum, mum meets this kind of young 20 year old African American called James James Epps, and my for for one another, and they start dating actually. And I'm not gonna suggest it was kind of easy for my mum, because it wasn't actually am even though she should meet him and they will go into town, there were certain times when she had to let go of his arm and walk the other side of the road and that kind of thing. And so it kind of wasn't easy, but they still stuck together, stuck together. And as a consequence, I was born in 1958. Oh, and do you have any siblings? I do have. So what I'll just explain what happened, because although I came along in 1958, there was an unwritten policy in the United States Air Force, that those personnel particularly African American personnel, that had relationships in England, they would not they would not be allowed to continue those relationships effectively, or those relationships would not be recognised by the United States Air Force basically, and any children as a consequence would not be recognised. And, and as a result, I found all this out subsequently actually. And as a result, my my, my dad, he was kind of moved around to different air bases in the UK, so unfortunately, the relationship really wasn't aloud. And although my mom expressed some interest in going back to the United States, yeah. Thank goodness, she didn't. Oh, my God. I you know, I mean, it just seems so romantic, doesn't it go into the United States, you know, but in the life my dad was from and I actually visited the area much, much later. It's from our kind of project in Stamford, Connecticut. And Stamford. Connecticut is a very kind of upwardly mobile town these days. You know, it feeds New York with its commuters and it's very expensive place to live. But like all American cities, it had its projects, social housing, social housing for black people. Yes, yeah. And those kind of projects were kind of Riven with all sorts of kind of challenges and, and deprivation and neglect. And that was my dad's home, and he had actually moved with his mother from North Carolina, aged 11. So like many, many African Americans, you know, in the south, they move north for a better life.

16:14

So were they in the projects in North Carolina as well? No,

16:18

they actually lived in a quite a rural, quite a rural setting in North Carolina, actually. Yeah. Warren, you know, Warren County, and, you know, a town called Aspen. And they were not towns actually they were villages as we would know them. And it was very, very, very, very rural. And fortunately, I have some kind of books written by my my grandmother, and describing, you know, describing her childhood and her upbringing in that town. And she calls it a town but it was a village, you know,

16:57

blesser Yes. So

16:59

rural environment moved to Stamford, Connecticut, because it there, they had another relation at the time, who had moved north decided to settle in Stamford, Connecticut, which offered them more opportunities than their small kind of setting in North Carolina.

17:19

When did you in your moment or your mom decided not to come to America? So how long did their romance last?

17:24

Probably couple of years long distance? Oh, yes. The long distance the letters I still have a letter actually only one letter written by my by my dad to my mum. So it did but like, like everything else long distance, gradually wanes, you know fizzles out. Yeah. So my mum was left to bring me up on her own, but she wasn't on her own because she lived with her father. So I was brought up in a small village. How

17:55

was your man treated? Because I think this is quite important. Because actually say it Dad's not around now. He's gone. But she's a want of a better word. Got this little brown skin colour baby. Did she get scorned upon? Or was anything to she ever get mistreated or anything? Because it was that here it wasn't it?

18:12

It was that era. But fortunately, well, fortunately, in many ways, my mom lived in a very, very working class environment. And it seems as though that working class environment had particular attitudes were reasonably liberal, actually. Because everyone seemed to be in the same boat, everyone was struggling, you know, in the villages that, you know, my mom lived in, in the surrounding villages. So everyone had to work hard. And no, I didn't, I didn't gain any sense of my mum suffering any kind of discriminatory marks because of me when I was growing up, but I may have been protected from that. But I did sort of delve into that. But as I write in my book, My mum used to talk to me at a very early age about being coloured, as she would call it. Yeah, we're not going to like you, and people are going to try and hold you back. And you must remember this, whenever you you know, whatever you do is that you're coloured. And she started talking in that that way around about five, six years old. Right, right. You know, so from a very early age, my mum was quite kind of switched on to the discrimination that I might well face. And that was because of the discrimination that she faced in town that when she went to walk the streets of Boston with my dad, and that she was very aware of the remarks that were made then, but in a village setting some way some distance from the town, it was kind of different. So in the villages, it seemed to be much more to different every one that was kind of a it's a camaraderie amongst the villages that kind of transcended race. But a town in the town of Boston, possibly she got more, more discriminatory remarks. That makes

20:17

sense, because I think I've spoken to my listeners again, because I don't know if you know this, Paul, but I was brought up in the care system brought up in rural area in the countryside. And it was interesting, but, you know, that's, I think that's why I was asking that question brought up with white families until I was 16. And in in children's homes, however, I want to move on next, I want to get into the meat, which probably everybody's thinking about. So how did you end up moving to London and ended up in New Scotland Yard?

20:47

Yeah, accidentally. Is the answer to that accidentally. But listen, I you know, as a young man, who look different from Iranian like only other there were kind of three full black families in Boston. At that time. I say black family, though mixed heritage kids all have the same background to me, all of being born of American, African American Air Force personnel.

21:15

You see these guys coming over?

21:18

Yeah. And, you know, the first time I kind of met one of the guys, it's in my book, we walked past one another. And then we both turned round at the same time to look back at one another and started laughing. Right. You know, it was because it was that unusual. Neither of us had seen a black face, I don't think of the same age. And, you know, I use, you know, looking back, he was a Michael Jackson looked like he had a fantastic afro, I had a good afro, he had a fantastic afro, I

21:54

think I need to see that picture of you and an afro, and I want that picture for the cover for his podcast.

22:01

So yeah, I mean, and that's what it's like. And the other thing that used to happen to me in Boston was it was a port of Boston support. Before I move on to the Met, I'd have to tell you this Boston support, I had a big dock, lots of ships would come in from all over the world, including African seamen from West Africa. Okay. So I'd be walking down the street as a little boy, you know, nine or 10, because my mum, I was a big, I was a big lad. So my mum used to let me go out, and she used to take me to town shopping, and then let me go off on my own. Yeah. So I'd be walking down the street, and all of a sudden, this small group, and this was a fairly common occurrence, actually, a small group of black men would kind of surround me, shake my hand and patent and talk to me about, you know, and try and try and get well, and from what I'm doing here, give me some money. They would always give me money. It was lovely. But it was a bit embarrassing when I was with my mates, you know? Because they used to stand looking. Oh, what

23:10

is happening? Oh, hang on a minute. Is it because you're male? White?

23:14

Oh, listen, I was I was only in Boston. Okay. You

23:19

were the only there are only four of you in in Boston. What was

23:22

it? It was really, it was nice. But it was also when I was on my own. It was nice. When I was with my mates. It was just a bit embarrassing, you know, thinking,

23:31

why is our mate getting all these black guys around in blah, blah, blah? Yeah, yeah. It's that conflicting things. It's that camaraderie of brothers, I absolutely love them. It's black men. But when you're that age, and the reason was that because I went through the same, I went through the same, right, there's young black girl with a white friends for a long time. And then I started meeting black people, and I started to get embarrassed for certain things will be saved. It's just like, you know, and you don't know, you just don't know what to do, really. Because your identity is all over the place slaying

24:00

it and you understand it, you understand it, why you behave in that way, but at the time, boy, yeah, no, yeah. So it wasn't until I sort of got much older, you know, 1313 that I kind of recognise that, you know, I'm, I'm the only one, the only one. And that start. I was really interested in getting into soul, my soul music. And because I was a big lad, I used to get into places that normal kind of 14 year olds wouldn't get into, you know, and I travel

24:35

and when we say big people, Paul's not big as a wise He's tall. So

24:40

age 14, I was about five foot 10 And I travelled and it was age 14 that I began travelling, you know, I saved up my pocket of money. And I wanted to go to these places where they played soul music, and our travel, you know, across the country. What with others, and, and that's when I started seeing more black people. And that's when I began to realise there was more to life than Boston. And that's when I began to realise that, you know, I was missing out, essentially, living in a small kind of rural town of Boston. Yeah. So I kind of, you know, through my teens, it was always in the back of my mind that, you know, I had to leave, I had to leave Boston, I had to leave my village, which was nearby. And so, I left school 16 You know, very basic qualifications. And I got a job in an optical company kind lenses. Spectacles, yeah, but I wasn't happy. It wasn't satisfied. And but, you know, it's a stable job. I've got a little bit of money. So got a car, and I had a good time. I had a good time in my teens. Actually, I enjoyed it. Good friends. And, you know, Skegness? Have you heard of Skegness? Yes. Yeah, yeah, it's a coastal town. Skegness was nearby. You know, I made friends with, you know, guys in Skegness would spend sort of weekends in stag mass and doing things other teenagers did, actually, and never had the issues. But as it was still in the back of my mind that I was not content living in that environment. I just felt I was missing so much, you know, began looking in the newspapers for opportunities elsewhere. And I wasn't sure I spent a lot of time in Nottingham as well, I use it a lot in my first Afro comb ever was bought in Nottingham. I mean, for some of your listeners, it may just, you know, sort of be fairly normal to walk into a shop and buy an afro comb. Listen, when you're growing up in Lincolnshire, and you've got an afro. Yeah, you can't get hold of an afro comb. You can't get a hold of any hair products to help you. I would write I would write to black magazines. Yeah. And, and asking if they could possibly send me something. If they could send me a comb. I would write to black hairdressers in London. Did I have I've seen these combs? Could you send me one because no one ever ever responded. So at the age of kind of 14, jump on a train to knotting them to buy clothes. And because I would, you know, I would save up all year and just make more than two shopping trips, which was, you know, I felt a fantastic city and had all these really great clothes shops. And while I was in Nottingham, I thought, oh, my gosh, there's I know there's a lot of black people not maybe I can get a an afro comb. But there were generally none on display in the shops. I remember speaking to this black lady, welcome. Do you know where I've met my afro comb? And she looked at me and she said, No. And then this one lady who have to be stood behind her and said, If you go to the market, there's a West Indian vegetable store. That's where they sell them.

28:16

So that's where you got your Afro came from.

28:18

So that's where I got my Africa from. Yeah, my first Afro comb. So that was kind of, you know, that was giving you some sort of context of, you know, how kind of difficult it was extraordinary.

28:30

Oh, no, yeah, I've spoken about this before. I mean, especially in that that kind of time and you know, you're talking now in your 14 says job before the 70s. Still late 60s. But let's fast forward London, thanks for getting to London, then Well,

28:42

eventually eventually scoured the newspapers saw an advert in the Daily Express, newspaper, for for clubs, for clerks at New Scotland Yard, clerical clerical workers at New Scotland Yard. So I thought, wow, and I sort of read the small print, oh my gosh, that fits my criteria. I've got those educational qualifications. It's in London. Could this would be the opportunity that I've been looking for didn't know anyone in London. Now, didn't know any. I've never worked in an office in my life. But I had the qualifications. So are off and I got an invitation for an interview. I caught a train, told my mum I was going to be working late. I didn't tell anyone I was over an interview in London went to a place called Regency Street in Pimlico, which was a Met Police building. And I always remember very clearly, I found it quite easy. And then I went into the building and I walked into this basement area. And there were two ladies two white ladies sitting at a table and they invited me in like I introduced myself in a very friendly, very chatty, very to and everything seemed to be going swimmingly well, until until they said, and if you are successful, or where would you live? And I thought, Well, that's it. I've been rumbled. Because I don't know anyone. You know, I don't know anyone is expensive, even with the wages you're paying. It's too expensive, you know, living accommodations. So I just stumbled something like, well, obviously, I would have to find a room in London somewhere. And they said, and they kind of lien one of them leaned over and said, Well, what we do for young people like you is we provide you with a civil service hostel accommodation. That is a place where civil servants, you know, people working in a similar area to you live together in central London, at a very, very much a subsidised rate. And you can eat sleep, and you know, as long as you behave yourself, you've got somewhere to live. And when I heard that, you know, my heart started doing somersaults, and I had difficulty remaining calm because I thought, Well, that's it. That's it. Anyway, long story short, I got the job. And I drove down to London in July 1979. I found out I was going to be living in Bayswater, really, Emma Clark did very well worked at big crown courts in London, and got myself promoted. And I came into contact with lots of police officers. And it was because I came in contact with lots of police officers. And remember, I'm working for the Metropolitan Police solicitors department at New Scotland Yard. It was then the days before the CPS where the Metropolitan Police prosecuted their own cases, through their solicitors

32:06

to just explain to people what the CPS is because I've got my reader listeners that may not be from here sure

32:11

that the CPS is then is England and Wales is national Prosecution Service, the Crown Prosecution Service. Yeah, I was introduced in sort of 1986 takes over the responsibility for prosecuting all cases on behalf of the crown. But before that, each police area in England Wales prosecute their own cases. And thank

32:35

God, we've got the CPS and even though they're just as bad.

32:40

So that's another debate for another time, actually. Yeah, I worked from the Metropolitan Police solicitors department. So I worked at New Scotland Yard, and then I went out to crown courts. And then and that's where I became very familiar with police officers and our bump literally bumped into police officers talk to police officers on a daily basis. And I found that some of them were quite nice people. And because I'd always been a bit suspicious, like any kind of young black guy was a bit suspicious, even working at New Scotland Yard. I saw a lot of suspicious cases. And I'm going to have to explain that. Yeah. So yeah, suss was an offence that lots of black people fell fell off in the 1960s and 70s, essentially, and it was an offence that enabled police to just pick up black people just for hanging around bus stops.

33:33

Yes, I remember this. This was disgraceful

33:38

was an old piece of legislation under the 1824 vagrancy act that was introduced to prevent returnees from the Crimean War hanging around in London and other large cities. But that piece of legislation was later adapted for the Windrush generation to control black people on the streets. Yeah, who hung around in Ohio around in large numbers, and could be and were arrested for little or nothing. Yeah, suspected persons. So sus, SAS, it was a bane of many young black person's life. And I would see the SAS cases, dockets piled up at New Scotland Yard. For that very reason. I would never entertain the thought of joining the place. But you know, I'm at Crown Court now and I'm, you know, a nice job and I'm speaking to, you know, lots of police officers because they need my advice and assistance in court. Okay, and continually being asked, you know, why don't you join? And the barristers that I worked with as well as they, you know, one Barrister in particular used to say, by barrister I mean lawyer and would say, you know, why don't you join Paul, you You do much better than some of the officers that you're, you know, you're looking at in court. And I used to, I used to, I used to critique these officers using or you're rubbish. You know, can't you do better than that? The eventually, eventually after the Brixton riots 1981 What year was that again, Paul 1981. We had huge disturbances in South London, you know. And that was as a result of SAS many ways that was as a result of, you know, young black men being stopped and searched, and the tensions were running high, and essentially, explode.

35:43

Wasn't that when cherry Gross was, or was that later, cherry, gross?

35:48

No, that's later.

35:51

That's later, okay. Okay.

35:54

There's been a number of flashpoints in black London nines, the 1981, Brixton riots were, you know, very significant in that they, you know, lasted two or three days, you know, a Pub Pub was burnt down, hundreds of police officers were injured, members of the public were injured. property was damaged on a huge scale. In and around Brixton, which is an area in South London,

36:24

can I ask you something then just on this, right, because I think we can have about three podcasts on this. But it's interesting, especially for the listeners, because you hear about the riots, and it's all black people again, and so forth. But interestingly, you think about PSAs now, and we still got the same shit going on to this day. What do you think has changed in society, in our community than as to why we don't, right? Because the last time was the mark Dugan stuff, which we can explain later, because I don't want to go into every case, because it will start boring people. But that's the last time I remember riots. And then there was George Floyd, where it turned to activist protests. But 1991 where people were so angry, they just burnt their own homeland as it were, why do you think we've pivoted to something different now?

37:16

One of the reasons might be the gentrification of traditional black areas in London. We talk about Brixton, for example, if you go to Brixton now, you'll still see rap people, but you won't see them in the numbers. And you will probably find that many of them are not living in the area because they can't afford to. The area's now being gentrified to the extent that you know, properties, but a three bedroom house in Brixton million pounds.

37:50

When also, I totally agree with that the gentrification but also with social housing, aka the projects in America, because American listeners, what happens is when people getting housed here, and if you're black or brown skinned, what they now do is moving around, they move you out further, they try and get you out. Because, as you say, the gentrification and I, you know, every borough, I believe in this country, doesn't matter how posh your area is, you need to have social housing, but they limited don't think, yeah,

38:20

I think that has an impact on, you know, how black people socialise to a certain certain extent, because, you know, when you when we think back to the 70s, and 80s, you know, black people were very much congregated in social housing in, you know, these kind of inner city areas. But that's no longer the case earlier. So I think there's not that kind of social glue amongst black people, but they used to be, and I think we've also seen a number of other kind of black faces from elsewhere, you know, from Western Africa, growing up in, in the 70s. And they've got kind of slightly different story, and many different experiences with late. So I think society has changed. And I think some of that is due to, it's due to gentrification. I have to say that there's much more to it than that. But that's one of the things that I can put my finger on on things. Yeah, it's not long.

39:21

Yeah, I would, I would tend to agree, I would tend to agree. So you have the riots and everything. And then you're getting, you know, cajoled into joining the actual police. When did that happen?

39:32

Well, I have to tell you about another important event. I'm sorry, you just cannot we cannot airbrush this out. 1981 riots resulted in something called the Lord Scarman inquiry. It was a lord, you know, was appointed by Willie wore Willie Whitelaw, the Home Secretary to look into the reasons behind underpinning the Brixton riots. And the outcome of that was the SASLAW was to be with appealed. So we no longer had the SAS law. And that really, for me was the opportunity. Well, you know, if we're not having that kind of racist US law, then I can join the police. And I have a relatively relatively clear conscience. So I joined in 1983. Wow.

40:27

So you did all your I'm not gonna go into the training, but you did all your traditional training at Hendon, because I'd like to come on to what you told me the other day about how training has changed. You need to train in at Hendon and whatever, you go into the police, did you start experience? Well, no, I'm gonna ask you really strong question because you know, and listen to another podcast where you talked about quite a lot of this. Did you identify as black?

40:50

Yes, for a very, from a very for a very young age. Yeah. And that

40:54

was I think that is absolutely key, especially in the Met because when did you start feeling those tremors of racism either at you or was going on in the street, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Now that you were a police officer,

41:07

I write about this in my memoir quite graphically. So I went to Croydon police station from Hendon police training college. I was posted to Croydon didn't know much about Croydon, I was living at the time. I was living in Brixton, Brixton Hill. And I must admit I didn't venture that far south actually. Even though even though it's only just down the road, isn't it? I'm a proud president of London. Yeah, I found myself at Croydon, Croydon police station. And I was a confident young guy because I've worked in a police setting up. And I've worked among police officers and I felt I knew what policing was about. But what I what I didn't realise when I was working at the courts when I was working at New Scotland Yard, I was being sheltered from the real police culture that exists within police stations. Yeah, I was meeting place officers night where they were on their best best behaviour. No, no Scotland Yard is where all the senior officers reside and where and every one speaks very nicely. Everyone understands the latest policy and the direction in which the Met is moving. And they tend to be more professional and thinking officers work in those environments. But now, I've been posted to cordon police station. And so I kind of settled down no problem. And then I'm not assigned to a team yet. Because I'm too young, I have to go through certain processes to familiarise with our old email pool at least 2324 24 Yeah, once you leave the college, you go to a police station. They Familiarise yourself, they familiarise you with the area, and the lots of things done to help you reach the point where you can go out onto the street on your own. Okay, so there's a gulf of about three weeks between reaching your police station and actually going out on the streets on your own. So it was any mind it was kind of kind of just before Christmas when I reached the police station, so I thought oh, I will kind of get to know people are go along to this Christmas do that I know is taking place at a local pub. So don't know anyone really well. At this point, I decided to take my girlfriend at the time black woman who worked in a bank, and I felt she'd be alright, she works in a bank where it's a very white environment, so she won't be fazed. So we went to this Christmas meal at a pub. We had a private room, the police had a big, big, big private room, big, big table long table. So we got there. And we sat either side of this table. And it was like a long bench the table was always remember, as the evening wore on, and the officers drunk more got louder and the kind of a language changed. And they started using kind of fairly graphic racist language to describe arrests and incidents that they've recently been involved in. So the young lady that I was with, looked at me across the table and she wasn't eating anything at this stage. She was just picking with her fork. And I could see her eyes sort of glossing over. And I thought I stage of what you do. What have you done? Why didn't

45:11

you didn't know,

45:12

I didn't know what I should have known. I didn't I picked up. I picked up enough vibes really, even though I'd only been at the station for three weeks, I picked up enough vibes to know that, you know, and heard enough stories. And there had also been a report published a big, big, big report. I won't go into that. But I talked about it in my book, The been a big report that had been splashed all over the newspapers, which talked about how racist police officers were. And so I knew all of that, then yeah, I still went along to their Christmas do because I wanted to sort of get to know people, you know, I felt safe, safe, and acceptable to bring my girlfriend along. And how wrong I was. And, you know, it got to the stage where, you know, she was hard to control the tears.

46:04

And can I can I at this point, right? Because a lot of listeners know about my podcast is brought in D, can you and I'm going to I'm going to make an apology right now to anybody is going to find this offensive, but I think, you know, I kind of know the, the makeup of my listeners, I need you to give me an example of what we said when they were describing things. Let's just get real. Yeah.

46:24

The the common terminology for for black people in those days was spades. Which, which, as I understand it was from the kind of the American Civil War terminology used in American Civil War to describe black people anyway, it was one of the few areas that is still policing was one of the few areas that used that kind of terminology, actually. And that people would call spades and Coons, that was the most popular one not so much. The N word. Yeah, or that the N word was used. But it was in spades was, you know, very, very prevalent everywhere. Revenue house was coons. Yeah. So this is what we were kind of listening to. And as the night was helped becoming more raucous, you know, the later he got so I just took her out of there. Yeah, I just took her out there. We didn't, I wouldn't look at anyone when we left. And because, um, because I wasn't on a team and didn't really know anyone. I just got some, you know, glances as we were leaving. But, you know, then went into work, had a couple of days off and then went into working. And no one to talk to me. No one spoke to me about it. You know what, oh, we went to this Christmas do Why did you? Yeah, because they didn't they couldn't place me in a team. They couldn't say oh, he's on team A team pay. Do you know this bloke on team? Do? You know, because I wasn't anywhere. I was still becoming familiarised at the police station. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, as time progressed, then all the did get onto a team. And I know I did quite well on the team. I thought, you know, but it was still this kind of language was always in the background. You know, all the time was like common days. Yeah, it was common that people didn't think that and sometimes there was one woman called Mandy Mandy cousins or to remember her blesser didn't mention and read my book and I should have done but she would be always be the ones would say she pulls it in here or Paul's there. And whenever they made these kind of remarks, and they would sort of look at her not look at me, and so we're not talking about him. We're not talking about him. And that's what that's what was said. And that's what So, and that encouraged me to get promoted really. I thought if I can get promoted to a sergeant at least I don't have to sit in the canteen and put up with that rubbish. I can be a sergeant and have some sort of say and so that it really encouraged me motivated me to become a sergeant actually. So

49:09

you became a sergeant and did you move from Croydon?

49:12

I did. I went to Catford, I've never been to capsure

49:19

This by the way, everybody, Catford is in South London as well. Got a big black community. But he went to

49:25

Oxford. Yeah. And I guess that's when things really changed for me because this was 1989. And one day, sort of in 1989 I was summoned to the superintendent's office. And I thought, what can this be about because I'm a sergeant, what is the superintendent what would make and Superintendent guy called Brian Crosby said to me, Paul, he said the met once over I can Asian officers to go away for two days. And to discuss why we're losing so many black officers. Why are so many black officers prematurely resigning?

50:14

Hold up a minute, how many Black and Asian officers? Really? Did you ever get around that time anyway? Probably about 200. And just under 300. Okay, out of a force of how many in the mean

50:26

time, probably about 27,000 I think.

50:28

So a very small percentage anywhere at the

50:30

minute. And he meant and it meant you. I mean, I had three, four black colleagues at Croydon and always remember my first day, literally my first day I was in the campaign in the queue. And that was a hub keep mentioning canteen that was a social hub of the police station. You know, you agree with everyone gravitated towards the canteen was usually a huge area, buzzing with activity. And I remember standing in the queue. And this black guy in plainclothes came up to me and said, Are you here? Um, I said, Yeah, I'm standing here. Yeah. And he said, he said, No, are you here? I said, Yeah. Anyway, okay. That's all. It was a detective. And he went and sat back down, and that's all on his head. That's all he said. He thought he unusual, unusual enough to get up from his seat and walk over to the queue and say to me, I'm here. But you know, black people didn't either, we didn't really talk to one another, because it was frowned upon.

51:49

That's the listen, I'm gonna tell my readers this. Now. What is so sad about this conversation we're having even in the Met, it still hasn't changed that much in real life. In normal workplaces, you get quite a few black people, it's still a little bit. Oh, God, do I can talk to that person over there, just because they're black and blah, blah. You know, I work in the marketing and ad industry. And you know, if I see another black person, I don't care. But I know some of the younger generation, and maybe some of the old school ones. They're not going to come and talk to you because they recognise someone that looks like them. But you see, for me, I've seen someone that looks like me, we are a minority, I'm coming to say hello, you might be an asshole. I don't really care. But I'm going to acknowledge you. And so what so about all of this is nothing

52:37

has changed. Yeah, there's a lot of pressure on you. Nothing has changed certainly back in the day, and to a certain extent, now you're right. But back in the day, there was a lot of pressure on you not to kind of socialise with other black officers, by socialising means sitting next to them in the canteen. Oh my god, oh my gosh, you know, if that did happen, all sorts of quips and are going to start a riot here, look, oh, what are they? What are they? Are they plot in what they planning? And it was? Oh, absolutely. You know, so I wasn't, I wasn't surprised. You know, I know who the black officers were and we would not to one another. And you know, just explain, exchanged pleasantries. But what I'm describing here in 1989, was a huge step for the Met a huge step for them. Because bearing in mind, all that we've just been talking about, the Mets plan was to transport all its black officers out of the Met to a neutral setting. And that neutral setting would be Bristol, Polytechnic. And it was Bristol Polytechnic, because it was a cheapest area that would accommodate large numbers of police officers. That's the only reason it was Bristol Polytechnic. So

53:59

this was for you the black and brown skin. Yes, this is gonna discuss why this

54:04

is over two days, over two days. Okay. So the outcome of that well is huge. It was huge. It was unprecedented in the history of placing actually. And the guy who put it together. There was a guy called Wind Jones, who was an assistant commissioner, he was young. He was kind of forward thinking and but don't happen to him lost his job. They drummed him out. Oh, they drummed him out. So he was a black guy that put it together now is white light white guy Oh, he put it together and then he's added is outed year to too much to suit. The establishment. I mean, the establishment will never accept that was the reason but we know that. No, that was a reason.

54:53

Through his course that he did in the programme he put together for those two days. Yeah,

54:58

well bring in I mean It upset so many senior officers including my own inspector at at Catford, you know, the look on his face when he discovered all black officers. I mean, he went red. He went red. I mean, and he said to me, Well, what are you going to be talking about? What are you going to be talking about? And me, I was like, absolutely elated. Absolutely like, because this time I'd gone, I'd travelled to the United States on a number of occasions. And I've befriended black officers in the United States. And I've been to a number of social functions with black officers. So I know how it could be. I knew how it could be if we all got together. Yeah. And uprising. Yeah, but but in the mayor, you know, we never we never did do anything or dead speak to each other. But this was an opportunity. So we all went to Bristol. Okay, not all at once we went in tranches of 100. So there were like, three, three different occasions where black officers were taken to Bristol, but the outcome was the same. Yeah, we were placed in small groups, and facilitated by white facilitators who were from a who are from the Met, but worked in kind of management areas. And the questions that were asked was, you know, and it was a formula, I now appreciate what happened, really? What do you like about pleasing? Well, not going quite so well. And then what would you change? And I say, my little syndicate of about 12. And I looked around me, and I was I was a sergeant, or everyone else was a PC. And I felt, you know, very safe in that environment. Because we're all you know, for the first time I was amongst black officers. And I said, I said, what I think we would like to change is the level of racism that we encounter. I said, I suspect some of the racism is not necessarily level that as but and before I could say any more, this African officer next to me said, Ha, what do you know, he said, I am connected to my face. Blockbuster to my face, what do you know, I love it. And that opened up a floodgate, that another floodgate, and everyone then wanted to talk about their own experience gets

57:42

taught, do you recall, and I can't remember his name, because not only is there the race, the race and being gay as well. And it was a, it must have been about three or four years ago. I don't know if you were back from South African. And there's a black police officer that the BBC did a documentary on, and he happened to be gay and a black guy. I've got to try and find it and see, but I'm sure you've heard about him. But he used to find dogshit in his locker and all this kind of stuff. And it was awful. And when they found out he was gay, oh, my God, they might as well just persecute him right there. And then sure, sure,

58:15

sure, sure. Yeah, I think I think I know who you mean, there's been a couple actually. But yeah, yeah, those were I mean, you know, double jeopardy, isn't it, you know, black K, you know. So Bristol, Bristol result in a coming together, or coming together for black officers. That was unprecedented. And it turned into kind of a social event as well, it isn't the evening, we went to the bar. Some people went out into clubs in Britain, in Bristol, you know, and we kind of bonded and we talk quite freely yet. You know, for the first time ever, you know, we were able to kind of talk quite freely about our own experiences, and laugh and joke, and knowing that no one was gonna sort of be you know, you know, labelers, as whatever. And so that was a, that was a watershed moment for the Metropolitan Police because what happened after that the mayor had so much information, so much data from those seminars that we were promised that things would change. We were promised that the organisation would reform. We were made so many promises. And we were also told that, you know, in changing the organisation, we will make sure that you are involved. That's what we were told at the seminar. So I thought wow, so I went back to Catford thinking. I was like, Supercharged. I was thinking like a things are going to change and be. They're going to involve us. So I'm going to look out for that opportunity to get involved. I didn't have to wait long and I saw an advert and main terminal advert for a post. Yeah. And it was kind of written in such a way as it didn't it just said the Bristol staff seminars, the Bristol staff some Yeah. So as not to upset anyone. So I applied for the job, and I got it as a sergeant in who was going to be, if you like in charge of administrating the actual kind of groups that would come together, you know, because we're going to have lots of kind of groups that we're going to come together to talk about change and, and I was going to help administrate that. So I was taken from Catford, yeah. To a building near quite near Vauxhall RaidCall Tintagel. House, which was, which was a met building. And there was a special if you like task force out there. And it involved me was one of the black officer called George Rhoden, there was about three, four other staff, all white staff. And that we were the hub. We were the hub for this change. What

1:01:14

actually so just moving this because I've got so much other things to talk to you about. So what change did you bring about, if anything? And when did you rise to super? So that's the other thing. So your Sergeant now you might you you're on this taskforce, what changes did you bring about and then tell us about you

1:01:30

getting Yeah, and the reason I pay so much attention to this watershed moment is because it changed my thinking in so many ways, and equipped me with so many skills and understanding of kind of racism, because I was day in day out looking at issues of race, you know, the Met, so I read quite widely read legislation. And one of my jobs was to write a grievance procedure for all for all officers in the mail. So I actually wrote the first stage to grievance procedure that the Metropolitan Police never know. So it's one of the things I did that. So there were lots of initiatives were involved in, that ensured black people were supported whenever they went out to a police station, lots of initiatives. But unfortunately, we lost our leader, or leader was taken away from us six weeks into that experience, centre to how So Assistant Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner when Jones was actually suspended from duty. So we had no leadership. After sort of two and a half years of working on these initiatives, they became so diluted and so diluted and so diluted. They're almost unrecognisable from what we had talked about in the beginning, as a consequence, very little in terms of change resulting from the bristle seminars. But one big thing, one big thing didn't change. And that was the way black people socialised in the men. Because the Bristol seminars gave us the opportunity to come together in one room and experience a reunion. So myself and George, I mean, it was George rodents idea. He was what a social animal is a PC lab peeps responsible that work with me. And he said, Why don't we have a function, a social function and call it the Bristol reunion? Strand Palace Hotel, lovely hotel. And we did. And we had a fantastic time. And people said, you know, we want more of those. And I'm this we're talking about? We're talking about now, early 90s. So we on a regular basis, we would hold these Bristol reunions. And they became very, very well known across London. And lots of particularly young ladies, I think Black ladies would come along, hoping to

1:04:10

black police officer. Yeah,

1:04:12

absolutely. Out of that kind of socialising. There became sort of a hard core of individuals, and I was one of them that thought we need more, you know, it's all right, coming together, singing and dancing in Yemen, some food, you know, but what else are we doing? What else are we doing? What else can we do? So as a result of that, and I write about it in some detail in my book. We held the first meeting, we held the first meeting of black officers and our black colleagues in the civil staff have been tested. You know, we held our first meeting in 1993. And that meeting results to read in what we now know, as the black pieces. Okay, so that's why that's why Bristol was so important. The bristles m&r was important the socialisation that Bristol, encouraged amongst black officers was so important. And the the work that then ensued following the Bristol seminars was so important in many ways. And it gave us credibility gave us knowledge, and it gave us power. And then we're able to come together and form a black, which

1:05:32

is which is important, right. And I think we find it in a lot of work areas in life. Now, when we got black people we have we have to find our own associations when our groups, because we need the power, because we won't be listened to especially black men who are completely disempowered all the time. So you got the black piece and Police Association, you become a chief super, am I correct?

1:05:53

I would never superintendent, but just can. I just mentioned 30. I'm talking about 30 years ago, this September, the black police association was launched formally launched 30 years ago, you know, so yeah, I mean, I stayed on, I eventually got got myself promoted, went through a series of police stations. But I always was conscious of the fact that I've worked on this initiative and equips me with so much insight into how the organisation works. I've made so many contacts on the way I had been in the, in the early 90s, I had been the black voice in the men, if you like, I'd looked at so many issues on behalf of the men are working on this kind of specialist team. So I was very calm, very confident and very competent. And I think that helped me that helped kind of defend me from some of the rubbish that was taking place. And it also equipped me to challenge it. And I became a, I became chair of the black police association in 1998 1998. And what happened in 1998, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry was beginning to

1:07:04

so just for just for listeners abroad, this was a really pivotal moment in the UK when a young old black teenager was at a bus stop and was murdered by some white youths who got acquitted in court the first time around and it set off. We didn't have riots around it, did we? But it was probably one of the apartment from the bloody post office. From a black perspective. It's one of the biggest miscarriages of justice. It was they were right. Well, there were sort of not riots. But there were rumblings outside the courtroom because we could we just knew because it was black and the lying and everything else that went on with it from our side on the outside. Paul could probably tell me different having settlements, demons warrants inquiry, it broke up the marriage of the parents of this guy that were fighting for years and years and years and years and years. And it was absolutely disgusting, how it all went, went down. I don't really want to get into too much of that people can go and look at the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. But the fact is that Paul was pivotal in that inquiry. So tell us about your role. Paul, as a superintendent, what what did that give you then more of as it were?

1:08:14

Okay. I was chief inspector at Kensington and Chelsea, when I decided to take the superintendents exam. Yeah, yeah. Superintendent is quite a senior position to hold Yeah. And I wanted to be desperately wanted to be a superintendent. And I was at this small police station Kensington and Chelsea and is more police station working with colleagues. I lovely Chief Superintendent called Dominic clout. It's just a thoroughly nice guy actually Irish I always feel that that is self significant. Irish people have kind of recognise what black people don't grow. Yeah, I think they're kind of descendants went through similar when they first came out. Yeah, no blacks. No, dogs are Irish. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that kind of affinity, I think, you know, between black people and not all, not all, but some at Awa I got on well with him. And he supported me for the superintendence exam. I always remember we, we were full super in full chief inspectors at Kensington and Chelsea to lay exam. Yeah, yeah. And he called us all into a room one by one. And I was the last to go in. And my three colleagues all came out with their heads hand down, virtually in tears, because they've been told they've been unsuccessful. I walked in and he looked at me and he said, Chief Inspector Wilson got to tell you, Oh, brilliant. I was Yeah. And But what could I do when I walked out of that room and all my colleagues? Could I go? No, I couldn't. I just said, Yeah, I got it, you know, kind of manage my emotions, you know, emotional intelligence, manage my emotions so as not to appear arrogant, you know, a hard and, you know, so, and no one. No one congratulated me. No one sort of said a great pool. That's really good news. No one did you know, once that my Yeah. And so that was a pivotal No, Merce. That wasn't that was another pivotal moment. Okay, so what should happen now is I've passed the superintendent and I should be assigned a police station. Okay, so I was sent the paperwork, what police station would you like to go to did did there and I put Brixton Lambert, my first choice. And I thought it'd be their first black superintendent the bid. Anyway. The weeks passed by nothing. No weeks, a month, six weeks at all. What is this? Why am I not knowing I've been told I'm going to I've been I put down Brixton as my first choice. I've been told I am going to Brixton in accordance with my first choice wishes and but nothing and I'm ringing up Brixton police station or Lambeth the burr command office to ask to speak to the chief superintendent find out when I'm Oh no is to DC busy. He can't i can't with you. And this will on this went on and it was embarrassing. And I was the only one not moving everyone else in the Met. Yeah, obviously to their police stations. You know, and I'm I have a friend. I have a friend who was a mentor informal mentor at New Scotland Yard. He worked alongside he worked for a guy called Tarik before, currently before was the most senior Asian officer in the country. Herot Tarik Kapoor was suspended. For for for accusing the Mac commissioner of being racist. So I went to see his staff officer who was working alone because his principal was suspended. And I know the guy from old he had been put in police station with me. And anyway, I went to see him. I said, Steve, Steve, Dennis was his name. I said, Steve, this is what happened. And this is what's happening now. I says, no one will talk to me. No one will tell me why I can't go to Brixton PlayStation. Well, you know, they did, he did. And he said, Do you want me to say something? Because he said, even though my principal and suspended, I'm still, you know, in a powerful position, I could make some phone calls in now. And I said, I know how the mat works, you know, and I said, Steve, no, don't, don't don't do it. But you know, within within two weeks, I got an invitation to attend Lambeth command centre, to speak to my boss, you know, and I went along and, you know, is his own affair. You know, no one explained, no one explained to me why I've been waiting, you know, six, seven weeks. So I was given a date as given the date to start and I thought, wow, that's it. Got a date start Brixton police station, got my own office rang up Brixton police station, spoke to the administrative staff and say, Yeah, this is Superintendent Wilson. I'll be joining you or pages make sure my office Oh yeah, don't worry, Mr. Wilson. Yeah, we'll we'll sort things out for you. blardy blardy blar and so the night before I'm due to start but I tend to Britain police station with my wife with a big box you know, a personal items because like everyone else they you know, you want to make your office your home. How

1:14:22

do you this time?

1:14:24

We are talking about what 2006 We're talking about? 2006 Yeah, doesn't say so. Yeah. I'm 50 No, I'm 140 I was about 4048 48 years 48 years old. So anyway, I took my wife along. I'm quite proud moment actually. So we pulled up Brixton police station park the car went upstairs and I said that is my office pointed to the door. She's Oh, she said you need to get a sign on the door. I said Yeah, don't worry about that. So Open the door. It was dark Sunday evening. Yeah, but switch the lights on. And what presented itself to me kind of was I was in shock. The pace was a tip. The place was a rubbish dumb old furniture, oh, filing cabinets, the windows with dirty broken chairs, broken bits of furniture all over. It have been used as a dumping ground for old furniture. And this was this was my office. And I'm I'm a superintendent I've never met. I've never met any superintendent anywhere who's had that experience.

1:15:39

Wow. They really were taking the piss. Basically, why?

1:15:43

She's always a positive one. She's always a positive one. She said, Okay, let's let's clean it up, because I could see that she was virtually in tears, because she instantly instantly know, she knew. And she was embarrassed for me. And I was trying to put a brave brave face on it. So we stayed, I don't know, hour, hour and a half, two hour don't know how long we stayed. And we cleaned that place up. And we've all the broken furniture to one side. And we found the cleaners covered. And we got some polish and we've got dusters. And you know, we I must have been nearly two hours actually cleaned it. So

1:16:25

obviously going through that because I'm going to come on I'm gonna move this around a little bit because I'm going to come through some other bits. But how long did you stay at Brixton? It? Was it tough four

1:16:33

years. I stayed there for four years. And you know, it was it was enjoyable, stroke tough. And it was tough for a number of reasons. And I really can't go into some of those reasons, because they were operational issues, pleasing issues that made it quite a dysfunctional place to work. Right. Absolutely dysfunctional. And I would sit down with any police officer, and I would tell them why it was dysfunctional. It was not acting in the interests of April of lamber. It wasn't it wasn't set up appropriately. It didn't have appropriate leadership, although it had a very vociferous community placement community group that would meet with place on a regular basis and try and hold it to account. Nevertheless, the place was dysfunctional, it was seen as a stepping stone to for very senior people. They would helicopter in get some experience in Brixton, and that would equip them to go elsewhere.

1:17:38

And is it because Brixton was seen as quite difficult. Nick Brixton

1:17:41

was considered in the main most challenging policed area in Europe.

1:17:46

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, that will make sense after that, because you know what I'm noticing about your career. I'm at Clark, I get into a customer I want to make change, then I go for I get started. Did you ever have the ambition to go higher than a super?

1:18:00

No, no, no, no, I didn't. Well, yeah, I'd had enough. And I just felt that the next rank like Chief Superintendent, you know, you really have to kind of toe the line. You know, you really have to commit yourself to the organisational speak, you know, whereas a superintendent similarly, you can get away with so much more. Listen, when I was at Brixton. Someone made kind of flippant remark about Well, I wonder how the black officers are feeling. This was in a senior management meeting I want to have the black officers are failing, because we've got the black police association saying that black people shouldn't join the place. We've got Tarik before the senior Asian officer. He's on gardening leave because of comments he made about the commissioner being racist. I wonder how this is all impacting on black stuff. This was said in a meeting in Lambeth. So everyone looked at me. And I said, Well, okay, we'll ask them. So as a result, I put together a mini restore exercise for the officers and staff in Lambeth, you know, and I put that so I basically asked them all and, you know, similar answers were given to me that had been given at restore, you know, years and years earlier. So things have not changed in in, in 19. So 2000 to 2000. And, yeah, we're talking that 2008 We're talking about 2000, between 2008 and 1990, things have changed, things have not really changed. So

1:19:45

what I'd love to do, Paul, if you're up for this, do some quickfire questions and then I'm gonna go to life Ansermet and wrap this up. I think I need to bring you back again, but because it's so interesting, but some quickfire questions then stop and search. Why is nothing really changed on that point? Why are we still being racially profiled as black people? You know, we had a recent case that gone went to call the black athlete, for example, they can smell marijuana 10 officers, I know you're not in the Met. Now, I'll come to that in a bit. But what do you think about all of that? Still? Why is this still happening?

1:20:15

What I believe is that the organisational culture, the informal culture, that Bond's the rank and file officers, right, is still underpinned by kind of stereotypical notions of black people. Because they do come into contact with kind of a very skewed element of the black population in that they will come, they will come into contact with young people, they'll come into contact with people that have been said to being carrying knives in gangs, etc, etc. So this all kind of feeds into the police culture, that black people are the ones to stop and search regardless of any academic theories and empirical evidence that says this is wrong. The police officers experience because of the culture because of the way they work and how they work. They they firmly believe they firmly believe and sometimes it's unconsciously and unwittingly, there was a group of black people, you know, don't they believe that they're, they're the people they've got to stop. But you know what, this is replicated across the country. Yeah. So North Yorkshire, Gloucester, shear, Somerset, regardless of where you are, that people are more likely to be stopped and searched. And I think it's not until you start unpicking, please culture and how it works and how powerful he is, and how difficult it is to break down for senior officers. So this calls for changes in police culture, police culture has got to be changed. Police culture has got Yeah, please call it has to be chained. But it's not going to be changed for years.

1:22:08

I change tonnes from the top, you know we have created a twist of the was it Dawson or whatever it was, and I didn't want to say dick Dame

1:22:17

dame.

1:22:19

Avec Yeah. Oh, come black woman at the top.

1:22:24

A woman and token woman

1:22:26

sorry, at the top outed. Now we have this new commissioner in there. Mark?

1:22:32

Is it mark something Rowley?

1:22:34

That's it? Do you think he is going to change things? Do you think we either need a black commissioner at the top to create change, because we've got listen to the man is in a mess. Let's let's it's not even about colour anymore. You know, misogynistic, homophobic police officers that he can in people and all this kind of stuff. We've lost our faith. But in terms of the black side, would it take a black commissioner to get that change? Do you think torture? Well,

1:23:03

the answer I'm going to give you is going to disappoint you. We could have you could have a black Commissioner, you could have a black Deputy Commissioner, and you could have black assistant commissioners, and you would still have the same, you will still have the same culture, you will still have the same culture. And we're afraid, you know, it's going to take more than a black person in a high position. Yeah. Just one or two black people in a High Commission in a high position. And that might placate the politicians and others and sometimes the bat community, but you'll find, you know, what did Mike Fowler, what real changes did he make in Kent, he was first black chief constitute. And Mike will tell you that you just it just doesn't happen like that. It just doesn't happen like that. You think you can go in and order people to behave and thinking in a particular way? I'm afraid it doesn't happen like that. And this is what the commissioner is finding is sacking an awful lot of people. Yeah, it's unprecedented numbers of police officers have been sacked. And we're now at the stage where if you utter, you know any discriminatory mark, you will find yourself in a gross misconduct board. Yeah. Is it really changing the behaviours on the street? I don't think so. I think the culture is so powerful. You know, there has to be a has to be a number of serious interventions to change that culture. And I'm, I'm at the point now I'm at the point now where I believe that the Met is too large an organisation the message from the top is the big being quickly diluted at the bottom when it reaches the bottom. It's been diluted to an extent it's unrecognisable so although we see the commissioner on TV We speak in a way that we think is wow, that's what we want to hear that's going to change things. Those officers on the street are actually interfacing with the community. They're not hearing the same messages. They're not. They're interpreting it. They're interpreting it very differently. Which

1:25:19

leads me on to nicely. Why did you leave them in? And what happened?

1:25:24

Well, first of all, I left them it because the policy well, not so much policy legislation enabled me to I was able to leave after 30 years pensionable service, which which I took advantage of at the age of 50. Do on the on the day that my kind of 30 years was up, I decided that I wanted to leave, but I've been embroiled in a quite a high profile employment tribunal with the Chief Superintendent of Lambeth at that time. You know, I think it's it's public knowledge that I was kind of paid off. Before we got into kind of the nitty gritty in court, we actually got, I was actually actually on my feet at West Croydon employment tribunal, about to give evidence, and a phone call was put in, and it was the Director of Personnel at New Scotland Yard, and basically says, Paul, we need to speak I was on my feet. I was about to read from my statement. Right. Okay. And that, and it was, and it was stopped. And you know, and someone told me very early in my service, choose your battles, choose your battles, because as a black person, if you take on every in every instance, racism, you're weighing yourself out,

1:26:43

and you're taking on an institution, not you, I mean, looking at post office?

1:26:47

Absolutely, yeah. So you've got to choose your battles, and make sure you can win those battles, or at least come out of it, you know, feeling positive,

1:26:55

and with your integrity intact, if I'm honest with you, because you know, it is, you've got, you've done so much, Paul, for them in terms of the fight that you've had, and what are the three things do you think just to round up the map piece? Before I go into a little bit of postman, what do you think are three things that need to change? In summary with a map,

1:27:13

I need to look very closely about how the map is organised, and really take some of those pieces of the jigsaw away from the map to make it a smaller organisation? I think we've got a smaller metropolitan place. I think we've got there's more likelihood of the commissioners message reaching them on floor, there's more likelihood of change taking place. So I think that is that is the

1:27:39

size of the map, because it's how many people in the map next, I think before in this conversation, you stated 27,000? I'm sure it's a little bit more but then saying it is a little bit

1:27:48

more, because it might have reduced. Yeah, there's also been a, you know, considerable political interference over the past few years. Particularly with the the tour of this Tory government, you know, they have kind of reduced reduce the numbers, police officers in the mass significantly reduced the police a state that's the number of police stations and yes, and states owned by fundamental employee, and the police have been compelled to do that, because I've had to meet this strict budgetary restrictions. Yeah. So cuts, cuts, cuts basically has, you know, as affected the metaphor it plays in the way that it's affected many public sector organisations, but policing is as suffered very visibly. I think, through lack of numbers, we don't have the community officers that we used to have to have safe and neighbourhood officers know we don't see them anymore. And kind of the reductions in personnel I've been I've had significant ramifications on the culture too. So now we tend to respond as a way of police respond to calls so they have response officers. So these response officers, the only experience of the community they're getting at the moment is in kind of offers often in an adversarial environment, because they're responding to calls. So that's not the community of the walk in the street building relations with the community that helps kind of break down these kind of notions of, you know, stereotypical notions of black people, because they're actually meeting black people in non adversarial, you know, environment. Yeah, so that needs to change. You know, we need to bring community officers back but we're not going to be able to do that because we can't recruit at the moment and we can't recruit because the concept of conditions and the pay is so dire you know, we're getting cut to the bone. We've lost experience. I keep saying we but the please

1:29:56

remember you were part of the institution for 30 years. It's not going to be easy just to talk What compelled you just wrapping this up a little bit? What compelled you to write your book, rocking the boat by Paul Wilson, everybody, please go out and buy it. But what compelled you to write this book?