CHIEF Constable Tim Brain steps down on January 1 after a career in which he has risen from a city centre beat bobby in Bristol to become Gloucestershire's top officer. In the first of a series of articles to mark his retirement, Dr Brain tells MATT HOLMES what inspired him to become a police officer.
Replica CorumLIKE many lads, Tim Brain loved playing cops and robbers with his friends in Kingswood, Bristol.
"I was never going to be a robber, though, was I?" he said.
Dr Brain gained a first class honours degree at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, followed by a PhD in 18th century church history.
After considering a career as a manager with shoe-makers Clarks, he decided 'the product' wasn't for him.
"It dawned on me that I was very glad that people make good shoes. It's very important - I wear good shoes - but I didn't want to be involved in making them."
With the police, the product was the community, said Dr Brain, and that was the inspiration.
"It's at the heart of the community, it's very dynamic, exciting, masses and masses of variety and when it comes to the people side of it, that's all it is - it's about being and working with and for people. It was just a perfect match."
The young officer gained a place on the graduate entry scheme with Avon and Somerset Constabulary and became a 'flier' - the name given to graduates at the police training centre in Brampshill.
The fliers were sometimes castigated by their non-graduate colleagues.
"There was a slight feeling that you might go high in your career but of course you will never be a Replica Chanel Watches 'real' policeman, you will never be a true policeman.
"There was almost a selfdenying ordinance about it - you can't actually be academic and a good policeman, the two don't mix, it's oil and water.
"I have never subscribed to that and I think I survived pretty well in my days as a constable in the centre of Bristol and St Paul's, and as a sergeant in Bishopsworth." Every officer remembers their first 'collar' and for PC Brain it was "a tramp who had stolen a pork pie from Debenhams in Bristol".
From that humble arrest, Dr Brain went through a textbook career progression, culminating with his appointment as Chief Constable of Gloucestershire in 2001.
In between, he played a major role in shaping police strategy through the '90s and noughties, a time that saw a watershed in the police service with the introduction of Pace - the Police and Criminal Evidence Act - and the creation of the Crown Prosecution Service.
"The criminal justice system has created far higher demands on police officers' time in the late '80s, '90s and 2000s than anything that was envisaged in the '70s or early '80s," he said.
" Pace affected every aspect of criminal investigation and the CPS became the leaders in the development of prosecution evidence as opposed to the police. Naturally they need to have certainty as they build a case, and this creates a huge demand. I think that means we have a much better criminal justice system in terms of the quality of evidence, but it is a more intensive evidence-gathering process that puts huge demands on police officers."
A historian, Dr Brain has written a book - The History of Policing since 1974 - and has clear views on how the service has dev
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