I turn fifty today – so 
happy birthday to me!
I didn’t really do anything radical or treat myself to anything when I turned thirty or forty, so I decided a while back I should think about things for the present occasion. A comedian I recently saw pointed out being propelled in to your fifties is like entering “sniper’s alley” – because some of us aren’t getting out of here alive.
A cheerful thought at birthday celebration time!
I have been noticing more death around me over the last few years, including some friends and colleagues, various celebrities who are roughly my age and the death of my own mother a couple of months ago – both of my parents are now gone and whilst I’m not at all religious, I can only hope to be entirely wrong about all that and hope they’ve found each other again somewhere.
These things made me think, especially as I head towards this kind of milestone and so I resolved to grab back whatever’s left of time and shake up my life to maximise what does remain:
I left the police service at midnight and
am now a former police officer.
MOVING ON
Despite the fact I wanted to do nothing other than be a policeman since I was four years old and never seriously considered any other career, the last few years convinced me enough is enough – in fact it was more than enough. Anyone who has read this blog for the time I’ve written it will have sensed the whole point of doing so was dissatisfaction with the general lack of leadership (with several honourable exceptions, obviously), corporate governance (usually, almost totally absent in my view) and valid training (please don’t get me started) on this topic which I’ve come to see as the most important in all of policing – because it cuts across and affects all of policing and touches upon fundamental human rights and the protection of the public, every time it’s raised.
This blog has been my attempt to put out there at least some information which I hoped might help front line police officers, in lieu of what I thought was missing to ensure the safety, dignity and rights of many marginalised people and assist in the professional protection of those officers.
And it was nearly successful enough, for a while.
The blog and my broader social media use – criticised as it often was, but quietly encouraged by a key influence – led to my secondment to the College of Policing and NPCC between 2014-2019 as their first national mental health coordinator. Whilst progress was slow, I did believe for a while we were showing signs of being able to get somewhere, albeit with the urgency of geological change.
UNLEARNING LESSONS
Having spent the last five years in 24/7 operational policing, it’s obvious the UK has surrendered much of the progress it might have made, both in policing and across its vital partnerships. We’ve stopped thinking critically about this and stopped trying to grapple with the inherent complexity of it. I’ve no doubt the damage second-decade politics did to progress despite many professionals fighting hard to keep things moving but this was always about more than politics and money – it was also about cultures and attitudes, in policing, in partner agencies and across our society as a whole. That’s why some of the problems we had before 2010 are still here without likelihood of progress in coming years.
I have found myself recently writing new posts about very old problems, including the most recent post – things I would have hoped had been cemented in cultures through learning but instead, I see the same basic mistakes being made, time and time again, not least because we lost more than 20,000 experienced police officers, replaced them with 20,000 new ones and then decided not to train them properly on this most vital of topics.
We simply don’t seem to care enough about those of us whose lives are affected by our mental health.
So it’s been quite frustrating to watch the police service almost unlearning many of the lessons it had been slow to learn in the first place and keenly making both new and old mistakes, apparently deliberately. As far as I can tell – and trust me, I’ve really tried to discern this very carefully and responsibly – “Right Care, Right Person” is attempting to make systemic many of those mistakes and problematic attitudes some police officers (inc senior officers) have been individually adopting for many years and which we’ve had to talk about before during inquests and inquiries.
I’m already convinced people have died because of this – I’m far from the only one thinking it and worrying where this goes next.
And of course, I said so – I could hardly have been expected not to do say so but it was widely ignored.
A FRESH CHAPTER
So my birthday present to myself is to stop shouting at the moon and the rain and leave to do new things, chief amongst them being PhD research on social harms arising from mental health related deaths after police contact. This is something I have wanted to do for twenty years or so but I have never had the time or opportunity before. I am so looking forward to cycling in to a beautiful university campus a couple of times a week and spending pleasant days reading and talking to new people, studying and researching new ideas over the coming five or six years.
And so – happy birthday to me!
Time to make the most of what’s left of my life, including buying myself a lovely new bike, beginning to plot some incredible pedalling adventures in beautiful places with better gear and booking a sunny holiday somewhere quiet for me and my long-suffering wife.
On my birthday, I always ride a mile for every year I’ve been alive so if you’ll excuse me: I have fifty miles to cover before treating myself to a lovely lunch somewhere.
Have a great week!
.
Michael./
NB: the @mentalhealthcop X (Twitter) account is now back up and running. You can also now find me on Facebook and Instagram, if you prefer those platforms instead using the same social media moniker.
I will keep providing commentary and insights, merely done from my changed perspective and making it clear I am not a police officer.
Winner of the President’s Medal, the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2024.
I am not a police officer.
I try to keep this blog up to date, but inevitably over time, amendments to the law as well as court rulings and other findings from inquests and complaints processes mean it is difficult to ensure all the articles and pages remain current. Please ensure you check all legal issues in particular and take appropriate professional advice where necessary.
Government legislation website – www.legislation.gov.uk
Mental Health Cop 