T
The420Guy
Guest
Brian Paddick, Britain's most scrutinised gay policeman, gives his first
interview since being cleared of drugs allegations. He tells John Lyttle
about cannabis, smears - and why he wants his job back
Brian Paddick doesn't remember why he joined the Metropolitan Police Force
in 1976, aged 18. No, let's put that another way. The former Lambeth
commander remembers the facts of signing on the thin blue dotted line but
not the motivation. He recalls, for instance, how his father, a plastics
salesman, and his mother, a building society secretary, weren't entirely
happy about his new profession. 'My parents wanted me to retake my A-levels
rather than join the police. They wanted me to study medicine but I didn't
have the grades. When the application pack to join the Met came while I was
waiting for the results I just filled in the form and as soon as the grades
were in I sent it off. But I can't remember exactly what was going through
my head.'
Paddick pauses. 'I guess some of it was fear. My father was brought up in
the 1930s and there was always the fear of losing your job and not having
enough money to feed the kids. I inherited that fear. I saw the police
force as a steady job with a good pension. I can remember going to the
interview and they asked me, "Why do you want to join the police?" and I
replied, "I don't know."'
Last Tuesday, the Metropolitan Police Authority found there was no evidence
to charge Paddick with cannabis possession. (His former lover, James
Renolleau, had sold his story of their life together to a newspaper,
including the allegation that Paddick had smoked 100 cannabis joints.) The
MPA also decided that while Paddick should have informed senior officers
that Renolleau was facing criminal charges when they first met seven years
ago, Paddick had not behaved in a way that 'justified the imposition of any
sanction, not even the lowest sanction of a reprimand'.
There is relief in his response but no gratitude. 'I gave an explanation in
April which they now accept, so why have I had to suffer for the last eight
months?'
It's hard to judge if the decision draws a line under a turbulent year or
is merely another dip in a rollercoaster ride. Lambeth was Paddick's 'dream
post', a platform to demonstrate 'not brutal leadership but caring
leadership', and the dream isn't dead. His wish is reinstatement as
commander. 'Nobody has explained to me why I can't be reinstated,' he says.
Instead, he has been chosen to head the National Intelligence Model, the
Met's latest blueprint for crime reduction.
In the past 11 months, the Met's former rising star has become Britain's
most high-profile policeman in the most radioactive manner possible. To the
Mirror, he might have been 'a blueprint for future policing' but a Sun
splash described him as 'Commander Crackpot' for daring to debate anarchy
on the Urban75 website.
One of the reasons Renolleau's allegations made such an impact is that they
linked Paddick with the very substance, cannabis, that had done much to
bring him to public attention. As borough commander, he introduced in
Lambeth a pilot scheme which effectively downgraded cannabis from a Class B
to a Class C drug. Just 48 hours after Paddick's banishment from Lambeth to
unspecified desk duties, figures proved the scheme to be a success: street
crime slashed by 35 per cent, burglaries down 8 per cent and arrests
related to Class A drugs increased by 10 per cent. What's more, in August,
Home Secretary David Blunkett announced national reclassification of
cannabis from Class B to Class C, making arrest for possession
discretionary. Paddick's approach is officially approved.
The man himself tries not to sound victimised. 'Maybe they were waiting for
some mug to come along and suggest it, and I was that mug.'
When we meet in London's Charlotte Street Hotel, Paddick does not seem as
'paranoid', 'unstable' and 'unpredictable' as certain senior colleagues
have suggested. Instead, he's eerily calm, though he says: 'There's a lot
of professional jealousy in the Metropolitan Police. Some people court
publicity. They feel the need to raise their profile in order to gain
promotion. To see the spotlight dragged away from them on to me is more
than they can stand.'
A wasting disease - read Aids - darkly hinted at in gossip columns turns
out to be nothing more than amoebic infection. Paddick makes a point of a
steady gaze, glancing away only once, when speaking about his family. The
lilting voice is calm and measured, with occasional flares of defiance: 'I
don't have any regrets. Well, I regret journalists ringing my mother up and
asking to speak to my father a year after he'd died. But I don't regret
what I've said and done. Everything has consequences. You take decisions
and live with the consequences. Thankfully, I've been given the
constitution to survive the consequences. Many people end up destroyed. But
you don't know until it happens to you whether you'll survive or not.'
First and second impressions are of an open personality, lately tightly
wound. Seldom sensed is a character capable of rousing great, contrary
passions. Yet Paddick plainly does.
While he's far from a favourite of the family values lobby, the disgruntled
residents of Lambeth demand the return of their 'People's Policeman', even
at this late date organising meetings, leaflets and the distribution of
slogan-emblazoned balloons. 'Pink balloons, of course,' Paddick suddenly
jokes. Cabinet Ministers have written in support. Loyal PCs whisper in
corners about 'the best boss we ever had'.
Imagine the grief avoided if Paddick had simply been economical with the
truth when questioned about Renolleau. He agrees: 'It's questionable the
Met would have had grounds to investigate if I hadn't admitted meeting
James while he was on bail and the second thing of James smoking cannabis.
There was no evidence, no witnesses. It would have been easier to lie.'
So why didn't he? 'Because people must realise what the realities are.
These are dilemmas officers face on a weekly basis. What do they do when
they're faced with this sort of relatively minor law-breaking? What do they
do if it's their partner who is breaking the law? What I have said all
along is this is the way I am, there is no side to me. I do realise that
when people are like that you tend to get polarisation. You get people who
are supportive because you will talk about issues and you get people who
are opposed because you talk about issues. I have no intention of
compromising what I believe in.'
Paddick is particularly sensitive to falsehood. Here's some compulsive
record-correction: 'The Urban75 thing portrayed me as advocating anarchy as
defined by rioting. What I said was that the concept of anarchism - the
idea that human beings are innately good and it's only the result of living
in society that has corrupted this innate good - was a very attractive
idea, but it didn't work in practice. Even in Utopia, there would be bad
people and you would need police.'
He bridles at the description of him as 'an outspoken advocate of the
legalisation of cannabis'. Not so. 'The pilot was about the best use of
limited resources. I didn't want my officers spending six hours of an
eight-hour shift processing cannabis offences.'
He takes exception to the commissioner, Sir John Stevens, referring to the
scheme as the 'Paddick experiment' when criticism was at its height. As
Paddick says, the scheme was sanctioned by 'the commissioner. He
subsequently said it was the Metropolitan Police experiment, led by me.
Which had a hollow ring, given that I was three months out of Lambeth and I
wasn't leading anything'.
Honesty isn't always the best policy. You suspect Paddick is now bitterly
aware of it. You also suspect that if there's a psychobabbly reason why
Paddick is constitutionally unable to mouth anything less than the truth -
'to sometimes shut up' as one acquaintance bluntly puts it - it has to do
with his decades deep in the closet.
Paddick means it when he talks about 'struggling' with his homosexuality.
The fight began at school when other boys realised he was gay before he
did. Bullying immediately began. 'It was only a couple of incidents, but it
only takes a couple of incidents to make you insecure.'
His response was to redouble his efforts to fit in. He excelled at rugby,
became captain of the swimming team. It's hard not to see the Met as a
continuation of a long process of denial. 'When I went into the Met, going
into what was then a very homophobic organisation, I was determined not to
make the same mistake again. I went to extraordinary lengths to cover up.'
Like what?
'I got married.'
Paddick wed soon after turning to religion for help with his secret. His
desire not to be gay was 'deeply felt'. He hoped God would let him live as
a happily married man. After two broken engagements, he may have also hoped
marriage would appease his parents, who, reading between the lines, set
great store by propriety and had all the prejudices about homosexuality of
their generation. Paddick tells the following anecdote: 'When I was engaged
to Mark II, as I fondly came to call her, I broke off the relationship
because it wasn't working and came home very upset. Mum said, "Oh, what is
the matter?" And I rather dramatically placed the engagement ring on the
coffee table. And Mum said, "Thank God for that; I thought you were going
to tell me you were queer."'
Paddick laughs: 'Perhaps it was Mother's intuition, but nowadays she is my
staunchest supporter.'
The marriage lasted five years and ended amicably when Paddick came out.
His ex-wife recently wrote a newspaper article in his support. 'It was
loyal of her, especially as a paper had pursued her and she'd been secretly
photographed by a telephoto lens.'
He still seems to embrace Christian values. There's no proselytising, but
Christ comes up in conversation more than once, as does 'humility' and
practising what you preach. Small wonder he provokes rage.
After all, we are discussing, according to the Guardian, 'the most
investigated senior officer in the history of the Metropolitan Police'.
Passing for straight, Paddick's career went from strength to strength. When
rumours started to spread that he was gay, a female constable claimed she
lost a position with the Brixton Domestic Violence Unit because Paddick's
sexuality biased him against heterosexual women.
In November 2000, on the very day of his board promotion to commander, an
anonymous letter arrived in the internal post claiming he had misused a
police car: 'There are very few people who would know the day of my
promotion board. That was the first indication of a serious attempt to
undermine my position, that they - whoever they are - were out to get me.
It was a fellow officer who told me he had a good idea who had sent it and
he supposed I did, too, but I should forget about it. And I let it go.'
Then came a call to the anonymous Crimestoppers phone line alleging that
Paddick had tipped off a Soho gay bar, the Shadow Lounge, about a raid by
the drugs squad, though no such raid was ever planned. The caller was well
informed. Paddick did go to the Shadow Lounge, did sit in the VIP area, did
know the bouncer. Though each accusation was judged malicious, it hardly
alters the fact that one or more of Paddick's colleagues wanted to ruin him.
So why does he remain in the Met? Rumours that he is off to write a book or
enter politics are dismissed, but why not? Or does he believe there's a
career still worth chasing? 'I'd need to be given strong reassurances by
the commissioner and by the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority
before I can believe that I have any chance of progress. It may be that
they can give me reassurances. But I can't see how.'
Then optimism kicks in. 'If you can come through what I've been through,
retained your dignity, maintaining the position you've held throughout,
then you can cope with most things. If there are any police forces out
there looking for a chief constable, someone they know who won't buckle
under pressure, well... I've been tried and tested.'
Pub Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002
from Paul Chang <paul_chang@cwjamaica.com>
<Observer | The Guardian> The Observer
interview since being cleared of drugs allegations. He tells John Lyttle
about cannabis, smears - and why he wants his job back
Brian Paddick doesn't remember why he joined the Metropolitan Police Force
in 1976, aged 18. No, let's put that another way. The former Lambeth
commander remembers the facts of signing on the thin blue dotted line but
not the motivation. He recalls, for instance, how his father, a plastics
salesman, and his mother, a building society secretary, weren't entirely
happy about his new profession. 'My parents wanted me to retake my A-levels
rather than join the police. They wanted me to study medicine but I didn't
have the grades. When the application pack to join the Met came while I was
waiting for the results I just filled in the form and as soon as the grades
were in I sent it off. But I can't remember exactly what was going through
my head.'
Paddick pauses. 'I guess some of it was fear. My father was brought up in
the 1930s and there was always the fear of losing your job and not having
enough money to feed the kids. I inherited that fear. I saw the police
force as a steady job with a good pension. I can remember going to the
interview and they asked me, "Why do you want to join the police?" and I
replied, "I don't know."'
Last Tuesday, the Metropolitan Police Authority found there was no evidence
to charge Paddick with cannabis possession. (His former lover, James
Renolleau, had sold his story of their life together to a newspaper,
including the allegation that Paddick had smoked 100 cannabis joints.) The
MPA also decided that while Paddick should have informed senior officers
that Renolleau was facing criminal charges when they first met seven years
ago, Paddick had not behaved in a way that 'justified the imposition of any
sanction, not even the lowest sanction of a reprimand'.
There is relief in his response but no gratitude. 'I gave an explanation in
April which they now accept, so why have I had to suffer for the last eight
months?'
It's hard to judge if the decision draws a line under a turbulent year or
is merely another dip in a rollercoaster ride. Lambeth was Paddick's 'dream
post', a platform to demonstrate 'not brutal leadership but caring
leadership', and the dream isn't dead. His wish is reinstatement as
commander. 'Nobody has explained to me why I can't be reinstated,' he says.
Instead, he has been chosen to head the National Intelligence Model, the
Met's latest blueprint for crime reduction.
In the past 11 months, the Met's former rising star has become Britain's
most high-profile policeman in the most radioactive manner possible. To the
Mirror, he might have been 'a blueprint for future policing' but a Sun
splash described him as 'Commander Crackpot' for daring to debate anarchy
on the Urban75 website.
One of the reasons Renolleau's allegations made such an impact is that they
linked Paddick with the very substance, cannabis, that had done much to
bring him to public attention. As borough commander, he introduced in
Lambeth a pilot scheme which effectively downgraded cannabis from a Class B
to a Class C drug. Just 48 hours after Paddick's banishment from Lambeth to
unspecified desk duties, figures proved the scheme to be a success: street
crime slashed by 35 per cent, burglaries down 8 per cent and arrests
related to Class A drugs increased by 10 per cent. What's more, in August,
Home Secretary David Blunkett announced national reclassification of
cannabis from Class B to Class C, making arrest for possession
discretionary. Paddick's approach is officially approved.
The man himself tries not to sound victimised. 'Maybe they were waiting for
some mug to come along and suggest it, and I was that mug.'
When we meet in London's Charlotte Street Hotel, Paddick does not seem as
'paranoid', 'unstable' and 'unpredictable' as certain senior colleagues
have suggested. Instead, he's eerily calm, though he says: 'There's a lot
of professional jealousy in the Metropolitan Police. Some people court
publicity. They feel the need to raise their profile in order to gain
promotion. To see the spotlight dragged away from them on to me is more
than they can stand.'
A wasting disease - read Aids - darkly hinted at in gossip columns turns
out to be nothing more than amoebic infection. Paddick makes a point of a
steady gaze, glancing away only once, when speaking about his family. The
lilting voice is calm and measured, with occasional flares of defiance: 'I
don't have any regrets. Well, I regret journalists ringing my mother up and
asking to speak to my father a year after he'd died. But I don't regret
what I've said and done. Everything has consequences. You take decisions
and live with the consequences. Thankfully, I've been given the
constitution to survive the consequences. Many people end up destroyed. But
you don't know until it happens to you whether you'll survive or not.'
First and second impressions are of an open personality, lately tightly
wound. Seldom sensed is a character capable of rousing great, contrary
passions. Yet Paddick plainly does.
While he's far from a favourite of the family values lobby, the disgruntled
residents of Lambeth demand the return of their 'People's Policeman', even
at this late date organising meetings, leaflets and the distribution of
slogan-emblazoned balloons. 'Pink balloons, of course,' Paddick suddenly
jokes. Cabinet Ministers have written in support. Loyal PCs whisper in
corners about 'the best boss we ever had'.
Imagine the grief avoided if Paddick had simply been economical with the
truth when questioned about Renolleau. He agrees: 'It's questionable the
Met would have had grounds to investigate if I hadn't admitted meeting
James while he was on bail and the second thing of James smoking cannabis.
There was no evidence, no witnesses. It would have been easier to lie.'
So why didn't he? 'Because people must realise what the realities are.
These are dilemmas officers face on a weekly basis. What do they do when
they're faced with this sort of relatively minor law-breaking? What do they
do if it's their partner who is breaking the law? What I have said all
along is this is the way I am, there is no side to me. I do realise that
when people are like that you tend to get polarisation. You get people who
are supportive because you will talk about issues and you get people who
are opposed because you talk about issues. I have no intention of
compromising what I believe in.'
Paddick is particularly sensitive to falsehood. Here's some compulsive
record-correction: 'The Urban75 thing portrayed me as advocating anarchy as
defined by rioting. What I said was that the concept of anarchism - the
idea that human beings are innately good and it's only the result of living
in society that has corrupted this innate good - was a very attractive
idea, but it didn't work in practice. Even in Utopia, there would be bad
people and you would need police.'
He bridles at the description of him as 'an outspoken advocate of the
legalisation of cannabis'. Not so. 'The pilot was about the best use of
limited resources. I didn't want my officers spending six hours of an
eight-hour shift processing cannabis offences.'
He takes exception to the commissioner, Sir John Stevens, referring to the
scheme as the 'Paddick experiment' when criticism was at its height. As
Paddick says, the scheme was sanctioned by 'the commissioner. He
subsequently said it was the Metropolitan Police experiment, led by me.
Which had a hollow ring, given that I was three months out of Lambeth and I
wasn't leading anything'.
Honesty isn't always the best policy. You suspect Paddick is now bitterly
aware of it. You also suspect that if there's a psychobabbly reason why
Paddick is constitutionally unable to mouth anything less than the truth -
'to sometimes shut up' as one acquaintance bluntly puts it - it has to do
with his decades deep in the closet.
Paddick means it when he talks about 'struggling' with his homosexuality.
The fight began at school when other boys realised he was gay before he
did. Bullying immediately began. 'It was only a couple of incidents, but it
only takes a couple of incidents to make you insecure.'
His response was to redouble his efforts to fit in. He excelled at rugby,
became captain of the swimming team. It's hard not to see the Met as a
continuation of a long process of denial. 'When I went into the Met, going
into what was then a very homophobic organisation, I was determined not to
make the same mistake again. I went to extraordinary lengths to cover up.'
Like what?
'I got married.'
Paddick wed soon after turning to religion for help with his secret. His
desire not to be gay was 'deeply felt'. He hoped God would let him live as
a happily married man. After two broken engagements, he may have also hoped
marriage would appease his parents, who, reading between the lines, set
great store by propriety and had all the prejudices about homosexuality of
their generation. Paddick tells the following anecdote: 'When I was engaged
to Mark II, as I fondly came to call her, I broke off the relationship
because it wasn't working and came home very upset. Mum said, "Oh, what is
the matter?" And I rather dramatically placed the engagement ring on the
coffee table. And Mum said, "Thank God for that; I thought you were going
to tell me you were queer."'
Paddick laughs: 'Perhaps it was Mother's intuition, but nowadays she is my
staunchest supporter.'
The marriage lasted five years and ended amicably when Paddick came out.
His ex-wife recently wrote a newspaper article in his support. 'It was
loyal of her, especially as a paper had pursued her and she'd been secretly
photographed by a telephoto lens.'
He still seems to embrace Christian values. There's no proselytising, but
Christ comes up in conversation more than once, as does 'humility' and
practising what you preach. Small wonder he provokes rage.
After all, we are discussing, according to the Guardian, 'the most
investigated senior officer in the history of the Metropolitan Police'.
Passing for straight, Paddick's career went from strength to strength. When
rumours started to spread that he was gay, a female constable claimed she
lost a position with the Brixton Domestic Violence Unit because Paddick's
sexuality biased him against heterosexual women.
In November 2000, on the very day of his board promotion to commander, an
anonymous letter arrived in the internal post claiming he had misused a
police car: 'There are very few people who would know the day of my
promotion board. That was the first indication of a serious attempt to
undermine my position, that they - whoever they are - were out to get me.
It was a fellow officer who told me he had a good idea who had sent it and
he supposed I did, too, but I should forget about it. And I let it go.'
Then came a call to the anonymous Crimestoppers phone line alleging that
Paddick had tipped off a Soho gay bar, the Shadow Lounge, about a raid by
the drugs squad, though no such raid was ever planned. The caller was well
informed. Paddick did go to the Shadow Lounge, did sit in the VIP area, did
know the bouncer. Though each accusation was judged malicious, it hardly
alters the fact that one or more of Paddick's colleagues wanted to ruin him.
So why does he remain in the Met? Rumours that he is off to write a book or
enter politics are dismissed, but why not? Or does he believe there's a
career still worth chasing? 'I'd need to be given strong reassurances by
the commissioner and by the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority
before I can believe that I have any chance of progress. It may be that
they can give me reassurances. But I can't see how.'
Then optimism kicks in. 'If you can come through what I've been through,
retained your dignity, maintaining the position you've held throughout,
then you can cope with most things. If there are any police forces out
there looking for a chief constable, someone they know who won't buckle
under pressure, well... I've been tried and tested.'
Pub Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002
from Paul Chang <paul_chang@cwjamaica.com>
<Observer | The Guardian> The Observer
