I was a Metropolitan police officer for more than 30 years and policed Notting Hill carnival for many of them, from the anti-police violence of the 1970s as a constable, to being a chief inspector bronze commander in the 1990s.
In the 2000s, when the rightwing press succeeded in removing “an openly gay police commander who was soft on drugs” (I advocated alternatives to arresting people for small amounts of cannabis) as the cop in charge of Brixton, “the capital of Black Britain”, local people signed a 5,000-signature petition and held a rally at Brixton town hall demanding my reinstatement.
