ABSTRACT
As soon as I graduated from Queen’s University, Belfast, I joined the police-the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)— following in my father’s footsteps. In the RUC, like all UK police services, all sworn ocers must join at the bottom tier. I think the requirement of having to experience policing at all levels and gaining promotion through the ranks solely on merit results in senior ocers understanding the challenges their subordinates face and, hopefully, gains their respect. I saw service as a young (part-time) soldier and as a police constable in some of the most bloody and violent years of the Northern Ireland conict. Memories of those years provide me with the motivation to do everything possible to ensure my own country never returns to those times and to support conict resolution eorts in other parts of the word, most notably Iraq.
