He told my colleagues that he had come there that night to kill me
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: I'm a kid from London, from the East End, you’ve got to think about my parents came here from Barbados. Would they have ever thought when they came over here, you know, in the seventies, that their son would have ended up as a chief super? It's one of their proudest moments and it's one of mine as well. When I joined the Met, there wasn’t a lot of people that looked like me, some good times, fantastic times. Also, you can have some bad times and you just got to work through those. A plain clothes operation in central London, me and a gentlemen engaged in a conversation where I, you know, where I suspected him of something, and then my colleagues just jumping on him and putting him to the floor. And then when I saw him on the floor, he had like a eight-inch kitchen knife, and he told my colleagues that he was coming later that night to kill me, he thought, that I was somebody who had sold him fake drugs. There was a moment there where I actually thought to myself, you know what, this is going a bit too far here. You know, this really could go completely wrong. It's about building really good relationships with our partners, our communities, and building relationships with other forces across the region as well. It's one of those moments where I have to say, you know Mel, I have to give you a little bit of a fist bump. Yeah.
PC Melissa Marsh: Amazing!
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: I'm proud to be a police officer. You know, I'm really proud. You know, I wear the uniform with pride. I would say it's one of the best jobs in the world.
PC Melissa Marsh: Welcome to More Than the Badge, a Kent Police podcast. My name is PC Melissa Marsh and I'll be your host today. Today's guest is Chief Superintendent Shaun White. Shaun transferred to Kent Police from the Met four years ago and is now Head of Strategic Prevention here. Welcome to the podcast Shaun.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Thank you so much for having me.
PC Melissa Marsh: Tell me, what’s inspired you to become a police officer?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: I think it started many, many, many years ago. And it’s the conversations that my dad had with me as a child sitting on his knee, telling me about Barbados and our relatives there who were police officers. You know, and their adventures as police officers, and I think it started there. You know, that was my real inspiration, and you just grow up with it, don't you? You just, you either want to be a cop or you don't. And, you know, as a kid, I grew up watching Starsky and Hutch, that might be, you may not remember that Starsky and Hutch, Miami Vice, the Professionals, Cagney and Lacey, you know, they were real cop programmes, that I remember. And I think also I just always remember when I was about seven or eight and there used to be this police officer, you know, he was about seven foot tall to me. And I just thought to myself, look, I just want to be like you. So, this is where I am, this is where I started, basically.
PC Melissa Marsh: Have you always been part of Kent Police or where did you initially start?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Oh, gosh, 1995, it all started. Hendon, Hendon Police Training School. I can remember going there and my dad taking me to join the Metropolitan Police Service in London. I'll tell you what, it was one of the most proudest days of my life, but also, you know, there was good times and there were bad times, you know, but the majority of times, you know, that are absolutely fantastic. You know, I look at the Met now, it’s completely different to what it was like when I joined, and that's really good in a lot of ways. When I joined the Met, there wasn’t a lot of people that looked like me.
PC Melissa Marsh: So, was that just as a normal police role or did you branch out into different roles as well?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: So, I started off in my probation in Kent we say LPT (Local Policing Team), and I can remember my first day there and my first arrest, on team. So, you know, when, I always see the colleagues in Kent in LPT, I always get that little urge to say to myself, you know, I wish I could go out in a car with them. First arrest, Leicester Square going around the back streets of Leicester Square and there was a gentleman there, and it was an arrest for Section Five Public Order Act. He was quite rude and abusive, and I remember arresting him. But I started off there and then from on relief, I went to, it was just like a mini crime squad because I always had interest, you know, of, you know, of being that detective and, you know, going out there and, you know, and chasing the bad guys. But I spent seven years as a uniformed cop on LPT. So, I did the Crime Squad, and I did a little bit of Neighbourhood Policing. I did put an application into CID, but then when my friend said to me, “look, you really do need to go and join the territorial support group”. So, I spent some time there and I got promoted from there to become a sergeant. So, the TSG (Territorial Support Group) in the Met is, is riot police. I would say it really taught me about policing because I police all across London, the most challenging parts and that's where you actually learn how to talk to members of the public, who sometimes could be quite confrontational for whatever reasons, could be mental health. And you know, from TSG, I went on to work in Lambeth, so I went straight away to Streatham, which was really good, as a sergeant. And I went straight into Custody for a bit, and that was pretty good. Learnt a lot in Custody because you get to learn pretty quick. You only do a two-week course and they put you straight into Custody, and then I was a sergeant on the section for a while, and then I did Neighbourhood Policing. So that was pretty good, and from neighbourhood policing, I then left to become a detective in Professional Standards. So, I did that for a few years, and then from there I got promoted to be a DI and I went back to Brixton.
PC Melissa Marsh: OK.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: And that was one of the most exciting periods in my policing career, because I dealt with a really complex and multi-layered policing environment, which at the time was the most challenging in Europe. I made a lot of friends; it was really good to work with the community there. I learned a lot and it was good to listen to people, which I found which was quite important. But also, you always have to respect the police officers there, you know, because they police in a really diverse environment. And they learnt very quickly that, you know, to listening to our community members and most importantly, you know, a lot of the officers there realised what they're actually who they were.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: You know, which was quite important. And then from then on, I went to the Forensic Converter Teams, but, I missed a little bit there. I did Lambeth Gangs Taskforce which was.
PC Melissa Marsh: Oh ok, that must have been quite an interesting one.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Well, it was, it was, it was really good. I learnt a lot from there. It was, you really start to understand these young people, why they were involved in it, and it is so complicated, you know, but we built really positive relationships with the community with the good work we had done, you know, we locked up some bad people.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Which we had to do. We worked in partnership with our communities, but there's one arrest that I wanted to just mention here. It was when I was a young PC, and I know we are skipping back, because I think one of these arrests I always remember. It's about out on foot patrol and we're walking up Charing Cross Road and it's late at night, and we just saw this guy, he was involved in drugs, I'll just say at that point. We stopped him, we searched him, he had a bit more on him. He didn't speak a word of English, okay, he was from South America, and we brought him back to a police station. And whilst taking his fingerprints on the fingerprints machine, it came back that he was he was wanted. Okay. So basically, what we had done, we had arrested a hit man from Colombia.
PC Melissa Marsh: Oh, my word.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, he just had a bad night that he got caught.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, and that's a true story because he, he was arrested by the Murder Team, and he was also wanted to be sought by the Extradition Unit in the Met as well. And I always remember that, about going out when you’re on foot patrol, because that's what I did, a lot of that foot patrol, and about speaking to members of the public and feeling comfortable and confident with your stop and search powers when using them in the right way.
PC Melissa Marsh: That's quite an interesting arrest, it is also when you think of all the information that we use now, you probably didn't have that information back then to hand.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: No.
PC Melissa Marsh: Or up to the standard that we have today. So, you never really know what you’re really walking into.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: No, and you know what it is, is people might say it's a coppers nose or a gut instinct. And you know what? Some of it is that. Yeah, we didn't have the technology. I didn't have BWV (body worn video). I, you know, I wasn't in a car able to do name checks or anything like that, it was just a radio. And sometimes it was just a knack of just seeing movement. And I'll tell you about another arrest, which was it was something I, you know, I'll never forget. It was something that you may have seen in a movie many years ago. It was, I was out with my inspector when we were on TSG, and we saw this guy just run past us, it was a hot day like this. And the guy was wearing a trench coat. Right, and trainers on. Some people might have just thought, well, you know, he just decided to wear it. But straight away I thought, something's wrong, as he ran past us. And he had an umbrella in his hand as well. So, I said to my inspector said, Guv'nor, we’ve got to go after this guy. So, we hailed down a black cab, we jumped in the cab, and the cab sped after him down the road. We pulled up because he was outside the taxi. He said, “Oh, can I help you guys?” I said, look, we just had a normal conversation with him. I just asked him what you're doing here. And he just said, “look, I'm here to buy tickets to go to the cinema”. And just by his actions and the way he was talking to me, I had sufficient grounds to search him. So, we found stolen credit cards on him. And, you know, that day, it was a lifesaving moment for us, because what actually transpired as, he had seriously assaulted his partner and he had assaulted his child at home. So, when we went back to do a Section 18 at the address, we found his partner who had been seriously assaulted by him and the child as well. And if we didn't go there, you know, God knows what would have happened, because she was on the floor, the baby was crying and screaming, you know, and we've got him in custody for that. So that's one of many a stories that I could tell. You know, but I think it's important to just say, you know, when you deal with all these arrests and over a period of time, because I came into policing into about approximately nearly 30 years.
PC Melissa Marsh: A long time.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, you know, and I know what it's like. And the cops on the front line, they need the support. Okay. The benefit of the experience of people being able to sit down and talk to them, you know, and I look at our sergeants, they're really good, you know, and it's just for them to realise that, you know, us as senior officers, okay, we've been there, we've been there, and that time when you might see us walk past, you might think, “crikes, I might not be able to speak to them”. But we've all been there. We've been there when we’ve worked late, late turns we've been there early turns, we’ve been there when we've had to juggle the childcare. So, we really do understand, and you know, it's just it's one of those moments where I have to say, you know Mel, I have to give you a little bit of a fist bump. Yeah.
PC Melissa Marsh: Amazing!
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Okay. Yeah.
PC Melissa Marsh: No, that's brilliant. Thank you. So, a lot of interesting stories on the arrests that are coming. You never really expect that from a person, it's like there's always a, there could always be something underlying under the crime that they commit. That there's something going on further in the background and you don't know unless you actually speak to someone.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah.
PC Melissa Marsh: So, it’s quite good that you were able to pick that up on that day.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: As a cop, you've got to be inquisitive. You’ve got to ask questions, okay, and you've just got to sometimes think to yourself, you know, you may want to give someone the benefit of the doubt, okay, because you always can. Okay, but sometimes, you know, when you get that feeling, something's not right, and you should be able to explore that mind as well.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: That thought for something's not right here, let me look into it. You know, and stick by your guns, because we always can apologise if we get something wrong. And I think that's so important, that shows humility as a cop, that you know, sorry, that I stopped you, but this is what I thought. And, you know, take someone who's got a lot of pride to walk away and say look, I got it wrong that time. I think the public at the moment, there’s so many different things what've happened in policing, and you know, legitimacy of policing is being challenged. It's being challenged all over. Okay, from the time we put on our uniform, okay, to even in our own minds as cops, we're challenging whether we're doing the right thing or the wrong thing. Okay. And the only way you're going to get through that, is marching through it and just doing the right thing. You know, proud to wear the uniform, proud to do the right thing. And, you know, there's times where you just got to say, look, I got it wrong. But also, the most important thing is that all the public want to see, they want to see a cop out in the street. Okay. We're feeling proud in that uniform. And if someone does something wrong, you know, yeah, they've got to get arrested. But sometimes talking to them, giving somebody a warning is just as good, is just as powerful.
PC Melissa Marsh: So, we've spoken about your time in the Met Police. You've now obviously evolved into a career into Kent Police. What was the transition like?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, transition as a transferee. Whoa. I can remember the day before me coming to Kent, you know, thinking to myself have I made the right decision. It was, you know, 25 years in the Met and then coming to Kent and, I remember the first day I came into Kent and, you know, the reception was good. It was really good. It was, how can I say, everything was laid out for me on the first day, which I was pretty shocked at. There was an agenda for me for different people I had to meet. And I was always just a little bit cautious because, you know, naturally that's the type of person that I am. And I met loads of people, people were really nice to me, and I was thinking to myself, this is a little bit weird here. How come’s everybody’s being so nice to me? It was very welcoming. I remember my first day, I had to meet loads of everybody, lots of different people. And our chief constable was my ACC (assistant chief constable), so I had to have two meetings with him. So, the first meeting was “Hi Shaun, nice to meet you” and what, “what team do you support?” Made me settle me down or whatever and then the next meeting was his expectations. So, it was a little bit wow, I'm not used to this so Mr. Smith came in, and it was sort of like, how can I describe it, two old school detectives sitting in front of each other. And it was just like, let’s see how good you are now then son.
PC Melissa Marsh: Feeling the pressure.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, yeah. So it was that moment I just thought to myself, you know what? I'm here to do a job, here to do business. And I went straight into County Lines and Gangs team, which was, which I was used to dealing with and with the Crime Squad. So, I had support from the whole force. There's too many names to mention, but everybody was extremely welcoming and, and let me be my authentic self. Okay, the Met will teach you about dealing with criticality, but Kent will teach you how to be a leader. Okay, it’s so important
PC Melissa Marsh: I like those words. As a chief superintendent, tell us a bit about what you do in your current role.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Oh, wow. Well, I've just started my current role, two weeks in, Strategic Prevention Command, really important role. It's about building really good relationships with our partners, our communities, and building relationships with other forces across the region as well. So, I work with health, education. I work with our local authorities as well. I started to work with our community groups as well, supporting the divisions. There's a lot to do in this role. So, I've been in there two weeks, and I have to say it’s pretty exciting. I was the divisional commander for North Division, yeah, that was a tough, tough journey. I can honestly say I’ve done a lot of exciting roles in policing; North Division was extremely exciting but very, very challenging as well. There's a lot that goes on in North Division. It's got fantastic staff, fantastic communities. I have to say it’s the best job I've ever done in policing, because I'd like to think I left there and left a bit of a legacy.
PC Melissa Marsh: How long did you do that role for?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: I did it for two years. Two years that I can honestly say when I started, I didn't have a lot of grey hairs. But my beard now is..
PC Melissa Marsh: I don’t see that many.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: But I'll tell you what, I will never forget it. So, you got to think about I'm a kid from London, from the East End, you’ve got to think about my parents came here from Barbados, would they have ever thought when they came over here, you know, in the seventies, that their son would have ended up as a chief super on North Division. No, but it's one of their proudest moments and it's one of mine as well. So, a lot of respect there to both my parents there.
PC Melissa Marsh: Tell us a bit about some of the major cases that you've dealt with, and which one has been the toughest.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Oh. I was fortunate enough to deal with a case, and I really want to talk about this case because, it dealt with someone who was quite vulnerable, vulnerable adult, adult female. She was taken over to the Caribbean and left there, so she'd been taken from her home, by her carer, and she’s just left there. And she's left there homeless, living on the streets, no friends at all, and she’s just left her there and the carer has taken ownership of her house, and her assets in the UK. And she's just left her there destitute. This elderly lady was going into the British Embassy every day saying, “I live in the UK, I've been left here” and they didn't believe her. Her support worker in the UK came into the police station and tried to report her missing on more than one occasion and she wasn't taken seriously until they actually looked at the missing report and looked at this and just felt something's not right here. You know, and it's about taking a proper account from her quite full account from the support worker, then actually talking to the British Consulate in Jamaica to actually say, are they aware of this individual? And they said that they were. And it's about working with British Airways to actually bring it back to the UK. Okay. So, she’s brought back, she's a vulnerable adult, quite elderly, she's in her eighties and we've had to do a quite a long interview with her, lots of breaks, and it transpired that, you know, she had been financially exploited by her carer, took ownership of her house in the UK. But the thing is, it wasn't just that victim there. We managed to find out that there were about three other victims. One of the victims had passed away as well, and it was quite heartbreaking, because you saw these elderly people who had lost all their life savings. Some have lost their property as well, and then you've got to think of the individual who's done this has got no morals, got no scruples, but felt quite comfortable. We managed to track her down. She was arrested, brought into custody, and breached her bail a number of times. And when we went into her home address for the Section 18 Search, we found loads of SIM cards there, you know, loads of applications for benefits. Even though we'd taken her passport off her, she had tried to get other passports. But then, you know, to really find out the background of the actual case, we actually had to spend two weeks in Jamaica which I have to say really beautiful country, really supported by the Jamaican Constabulary and the Judiciary. They supported us enough, but it was a case that took us about a year from cradle to grave to convict this woman, but also the things is trying to get some of it back for these victims was the most important thing. That's a case what will always stick with me. You know, I could talk to you about a county lines job, but you know, you know, because that involves young people who get exploited. Yet again, that's a job where a van was constantly, you know, intelligence is so important at the moment. The national intelligence model you've got to think about Kent invented that.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: It's something in history that Kent’s got a lot of history about, and you're talking about a van coming across a bridge numerous times on ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) and intelligence supporting it, saying from members of public saying that this van is selling drugs. To cut a long story short, because I'm quite conscious that I could talk for ages.
PC Melissa Marsh: That’s okay, I reckon.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Is that you know that van was being hired as zip van to somebody in another part of the country and the drugs which were linked to that van were in a house, I'm not allowed to give locations but was in a house in central London. And to cut a long story short, the suspect, who we arrested for it, had properties in Dubai, properties in the UK, had assets in central London, safety deposit boxes with lots of Rolex, and Omega watches. Was part of a, part of a really strong crime family and he just slipped up. He got caught slipping, and we got him. And I think at the end of it, he you know, there was no, how can I say, he wasn’t hard done by it all, he shook our hands and said we did a good job because, you know, he's still in HMP at the moment.
PC Melissa Marsh: That's amazing. I mean, your story of the elderly being victims, is I can see why that's so heartbreaking because, you know, they give everything and then they want to retire and settle down and someone takes that away. It's a bit heartbreaking, unfortunate that something like that would happen.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, it's beyond heartbreaking, because you could resonate with her because that could be anybody's grandmother.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, and, you know, but she was she was strong, and she was living homeless on the street in Jamaica, and no one was taking any notice of her, she going in to the British Embassy, it was only ‘til, you know, one of the DCs said to me, “Boss, we need to have a look at this case”. It always pays to listen.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah. With all the years of experience that you have, over 30 years, how do you manage work-life balance?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Oh, wow!
PC Melissa Marsh: Any tips, for a new starter?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Oh. Well, let's talk about this morning, okay. 5 o’clock this morning I'm up, I've got up and I've gone in the gym. Okay, so, I think to myself, I've got to try and keep myself physically and mentally, emotionally strong. So I go to the gym, I've got a little workout that I've got, and I stick to it. I try to eat really well, okay. I look at podcasts and I read books around health and fitness, and I follow those, but I think the most important thing, you've got to listen to your body, okay. And I also say for any young cop, if you don't feel well, you don't feel right, you’ve got to be able to put your hand up and say, take time out, okay. So, I think that's quite important to do that, because there's been times in my career when I've gone at 100 miles per hour, I haven’t ate right, I haven't slept well and then I've just burnt out, okay. But what I would say to anybody is the work life balance is, I come from a generation of policing where we didn't even talk about this. We were just expected to be like robots, you know, and it's a detriment and to a lot of us, you know, a lot of men are not able to talk about their emotions or when they're ill. And I'm one of them still, I find it's quite challenging, hard to do that. But through time, you know, I am starting to learn how to express myself in different ways. But what I would say is, this morning, going to the gym is something that I have to do, it’s a routine. Come back, have breakfast. It's about getting ready and thinking about what I'm going to do during the day and when I come to work.
PC Melissa Marsh: So how would you manage the emotional impact of some cases?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: That's a tough one, because I tell you why, you know we talked about the vulnerable adult there, you know, and we talked about the time when I had to go round that address and the guy had assaulted his, his partner and his child?
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: You're going to think to anybody there that, you know, you are going to have some serious emotions there, of thinking, how could somebody actually do that? And you know, it’s with the vulnerable adult, I, you know, tears did come down my eyes. Maybe not for everybody to see, but the emotion was there to just say, look, how could this happen? You know because I thought, straight away, this could be my gran and that someone's picked her up and left her in Jamaica destitute. She didn't know anybody there. And that, was quite hurtful.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: And I just think it's, you've got to talk to your colleagues about these things, and open up to say, look, this is how you, you know, you're feeling. That's the greatest thing in policing some jobs, when you're writing up your evidence, you sit back, and you relax, and you do talk about the case, or talk to your supervisor or your line manager about it. You know, there’s time when I was on TSG, and it was, we're involved in a serious disturbance, you know, public order incident where it was a fight between two football teams, and it was it was serious stuff. And I always remember that because, you know, in public order, people think it's quite glamorous. It's not, it's not that at all, when you get bricks thrown at you, you get roadside furniture thrown at you, and you know, you're up close with individuals, and you've got your shields there and you're trying to push the crowd back, and then, you know, you strike them with your baton, and this is in pitch dark, so there's hardly anything, you’re just in with street lighting and there was a moment there where I actually thought to myself, “you know what, this is going a bit too far here. You know, this really could go completely wrong.” And, you know, it's that fight or flight. But, you know, as you're cops, you just stay there and you fight, you know, and it was only for us lucky on that day that the Mounted Branch came in and saves the day. But emotionally, I was extremely drained from that, you know. And I was at that moment, I thought to myself, you know what? This is a point here where I could lose my life potentially.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah. So that was quite an emotional time. But I think talking to you about it is sort of like a little bit of release from it and I think in general you got to talk to people to let people know how you feel. You know, I think both my sons now could be watching this when, you know, you talk about podcasts, but they there must be I've never really gone through any of these emotions with them about policing. I rather, you know, sometimes..
PC Melissa Marsh: Speak to someone that's in a similar role because they might see it in a different way and help you reflect on some more positives about the job that you’ve done.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, yeah, you can, I think when you when you talk through a lot of the cases that you deal with, with your work colleagues, then you can, they can resonate with you.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: But even though, families and friends, you know, they’re always intrigued about your job, and you know your career and your jobs and talking through with them at times as well is quite helpful.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah. You know, it just makes me think of one of my own jobs where I've had a parent with three kids in the house and I felt so sorry for the parents, mental health. The parent tried to take her life in front of her kids and her eldest child was basically raising the other two kids and to be there in the moment and not cry in front of the child because you know that the child is basically being adult. And you think of all the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) that the child has to go through for the future as an adult, it was heartbreaking. But coming back, reflecting on what you've done with your colleagues, and your colleagues reassuring you that the steps you've made was the right steps to better that child's future, really helps with the emotional impact.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: It does. It does. And, you know, listening to that story there shows me straight away, that you know, we definitely got the right person in Kent Police. You know that you're able to, you know, relate to the family, and also do the right thing, which I always say is quite important. I think, I think, young people who are aspiring to be police officers, you know, it's okay for me to say what I've been through, but when they see someone like yourself giving, you know, your own personal experiences, they can resonate with that, and think to themselves, you know, what, that's who I want to be. I want to be like Mel. Like me I’m, who wants to be like Shaun?
PC Melissa Marsh: I do! I’d like to work my way up there one day. [laughing]. So what's the support and camaraderie like at Kent Police?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: It's brilliant, it’s brilliant. And you know, what about it? It's genuine, okay, and it's authentic because people are able to relate and resonate with you as a human being and being able to sit down with you and say to you, you know what, it's okay to express yourself, I think is quite a mature organisation where people are able to express themselves, whether they've done something right or wrong. But also, it's a learning organisation. I see the young officers all are fully aware of the challenges and the complex nature of policing at the moment, and they feel quite comfortable to articulate it. You've just talked about a classic case there, that we're confronting with mental health. You know, you know, you came across really well, quite articulate, and that shows you, you know, the quality of young people that we've got in Kent Police at the moment. Its camaraderie comes from everywhere. It comes from the top. You know, you can be involved in an incident, and you get a phone call from a chief superintendent or superintendent. I would like to think when I was on North Division, you know, I was open, I spoke to everybody when I had to, and there were times I intervened and made a call. But it's not just me, all the senior leaders are like that, they’ll make the call. You know, we're a caring and thoughtful organisation and our people mean the most to us so, they’re at the centre of everything what we do.
PC Melissa Marsh: Have you ever had a scary moment in your career where you've realised the risks of what police officers do? Sounds like there were many.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, well, there's two incidents. What I'll say is, I did a plain clothes operation in central London, and I will never know what happened that night. But all I remember is me leaving home, being really happy, going to work, and going to a really busy location in central London, plain clothes, working with my colleagues, and then me and a gentlemen engaged in a conversation where, you know, where I suspected him of something. Stop and search, having a conversation with him, and then my colleagues just jumping onto him and putting him to the floor. And then when I saw him on the floor, he had like a eight-inch kitchen knife. And he told my colleagues that he was coming later that night to kill me, as in a sense that he thought that I was somebody who had sold him fake drugs. So basically, he was going to kill me that night, because he thought I was a drug dealer. So that’s how close I came to death on that occasion, and I think the other time was when I was on the TSG, that we did a stop, and, you know, you’re always told, you know, to be careful when you stop people. We stopped this guy and then he pulled out a butcher's knife, a meat cleaver, and he took a swipe at about four of us and we all stepped back, and we were all lucky not to get slashed by him. But as I said, the camaraderie, we went away, we spoke about him, and we learnt, we learnt a lot. You know, there was an incident from early on in my career where, you know, I'm really thankful for other police and agencies to be around because I was, somewhere like an observation post looking at a certain location. But, you know, the potentially that location was going to be bombed that night. But there was an intervention that that took place, but we were only told after, that this was going to happen. So, I’ve had some….
PC Melissa Marsh: some near death experiences by the sound of things.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: I’ve had some experiences that are, you know, that I realise, you know, how fortunate I have been sometimes.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah. So, this segment is a bit of fun, and a chance to find out more about you as a person. What is your go to shift snack?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Oh my gosh! Okay, bad Shaun,
PC Melissa Marsh: Bad Shaun, okay.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: It’s always going to be Haribos. Anybody who knows me really well, I'm a sweetie fanatic.
PC Melissa Marsh: Okay.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Do not leave any sweets around me, okay? Because I will sniff them out and find it. [Laughing]. I just love sweets. Yeah. Good Shaun is going to say, oh yeah, it's going to be fruit, but bad Shaun, you're always going to find sweet wrappers hidden somewhere.
PC Melissa Marsh: Noted. Would it be Original or Tangfastics?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: It could be Original, Tangfastics, it’s always a little bit sweet and sour.
PC Melissa Marsh: Ah, I’m with you.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Sweet and sour.
PC Melissa Marsh: Good combination.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: You know what going back to that, it used to be a bad Shaun would always know where all the best fish and chip shops on shift [laughing].
PC Melissa Marsh: Sounds like I need shift with you [laughing].
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: and it was always, I knew where the best fish and chip shops were. Remember there was no internet then, it was just a failure or, you know, worked really well. So, it’s chip shops I've been to before, definitely go to that one. Chips are superb!
PC Melissa Marsh: Love it, love it! If you could be well, if you had a superpower, what superpower would it be?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Reading people's minds.
PC Melissa Marsh: Okay. Why?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Just interested in just seeing what people are thinking. You know, that’s the main one, reading people’s minds.
PC Melissa Marsh: It would make the job a lot easier, I would agree.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, you know, a lot of people, you know, walk through walls or, you know, but it's just reading people's minds. Simple. Easier.
PC Melissa Marsh: The closest thing to that right now was reading people’s body language, a very vital role.
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Yeah, it is. But you know, it's interesting, I have always said to myself, you know, if I wasn't going to be a police officer I would most probably want to try and be a psychologist.
PC Melissa Marsh: Yeah, I get it. I can totally relate. So, if you could choose to have a celebrity on shift with you, think long and hard about that one, who would you have?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Well, that's a tough one, you know. That's a tough one. I would honestly say it would have to be, start off with Barack Obama, I want him to sit next to me and just talk, I just want to hear about his journey, you know I've read his books. He's good at sport. I think he's quite humorous. I think I'd like to go out on shift with him. You know, it would be really good. But I think that's it. I think for fun, for fun, you know, I really like, I can’t remember the TV programme, where it's like Jamie Redknapp, Freddie Flintoff. I love that programme where it’s those guys when they're out, and if I could go out in a police vehicle with them for a shift, I can’t remember the name of the programme, but if it was them, I'd love to be out with them, because I just think it would be really good bants in the vehicle with them.
PC Melissa Marsh: Final question on that. What do you wish the public knew about the role of policing?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: I think that we're just human beings, you know. I, you know, I'm proud to be a police officer. You know, I'm really proud. You know, I wear the uniform with pride. I think the majority of the public, you know, they really do like us, you know, that they need, they know that they need us at some time in their life. You know, we're like any organisation, we're not perfect, but we're learning from our mistakes. So, I really do think, show them that we're human. Let them know that you know, sometimes we make mistakes, but also, we are really good people at the end of the day.
PC Melissa Marsh: Amazing and with your 30 years of experience, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: Listen. Take every opportunity that comes your way and be authentic. Don't change yourself to be anybody else but yourself because it's time you tried to try and be anybody else, it's not going to work out. You're going to get found out sooner or later. And I think be proud of yourself, have confidence. Because when I was a young man, I didn't have a lot of confidence. So, I think it's so important for young people in general to feel, that you know what, we've all been there, we've all been young once. And to younger Shaun, I'll say to you, I've got your back.
PC Melissa Marsh: Very, very good words. What advice would you give to someone thinking of joining Kent Police?
Chief Superintendent Shaun White: I would say to somebody who was going to join thinking about Kent Police is give it a go. Okay, you've got to think about why you want to join. Okay, so policing is a great career. It's made me the person who I am today. It's given me opportunities that no other job could have given me. It's a hard job, but also, it’s very rewarding. I’d ask them to most likely to come into the police station and find out a lot about it. If they know friends who are in policing speak to them about it. And most importantly, I would say to them, give it a go. Really do give it a go, but also realise, that you know, you will have some good times, fantastic times. Also, you can have some bad times and you just got to work through those. It's not bad, always bad. It’s I would say one of the best jobs in the world. And I think a lot of people would say that, because you've got to think about if you look on TV, yeah, it’s all cop programmes, it’s all cop programmes, and there's a lot of people around the world who love cop programmes. They always talk about them and, you know, it's a, it's a good job. It really is a good job!
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