It was his vest that saved him

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: It is the greatest show on earth. There's something about policing that kind of draws you to it, that's almost the sort of the secret sauce to it all is that everybody has, their reason for doing it. Some people don't even know their reason until they've, done it.

When people say ‘thank you for your service’ all of that kind of stuff, don't forget, I've got a huge amount out of it.

Then I looked down at the man who was having the heart attack, and he was just, he was just kind of just looking up at me and his eyes were [eyes rolling up], and he just grabbed my hand, and he squeezed my hand.

I've been lucky, because you can be at the wrong place at wrong time. One of my colleagues back in the day at Gravesend was stabbed, and it was his vest, that saved him. The Special Constabulary ultimately, you can put it in many different ways, but is exactly the same as the regular force, but with no payment, volunteers, kind of part-time, if you want to call it that way, you’ve got to do 16 hours a month minimum, and it's made up of all walks of life so, some people do it for the scouts, some people do it for the lifeboats, some people do it for St John's Ambulance, lots of people do it for you know charities, dog shelters etc. etc. we just happen to do it from a policing standpoint. I think I genuinely have the best of both worlds. [Music].

PSE Natalie Hardy: Welcome to More Than the badge, a Kent Police podcast. My name is Natalie Hardy, and I will be your host today. Today's episode is with Special Inspector Terry Connolly. Terry has volunteered for Kent Police for 30 years and is an integral part of our Roads Policing Unit. Welcome to the podcast Terry.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Thanks for having me.

PSE Natalie Hardy: What inspired you to join the Special Constabulary?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Cor that's a good question. I think inspiration is a big word isn't it, it conjures up this like moment where you go ‘ah that!’. I don't think it was like that for me, I'm the youngest of three, and I'm the youngest considerably by about 16 years, and so my sister, who is the eldest she met a guy, and he was in the police cadets when they met, and then he became a PC in the Met, and then by the time I was sort of a toddler, just getting old, they were going out and so I grew up with his stories ‘cause he would come back from his shift normally to our house..

PSE Natalie Hardy: Oh, that’s amazing!

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: to see her. So, I grew up on all of his kind of stories about what he'd done that particular day everything from quite boring stuff to quite ergh stuff [hands up and screwed up face] to wow that's exciting stuff. So, I don't know if that inspired me but it was certainly kind of in my head, I guess all the way through my late childhood and then your early teens, and I was going to join the Metropolitan Police which is, he was part of, and I just finished my A-levels, you had to be 18 and a half. So, I was doing a part-time job and I thought ‘that's what I want to do’ and I got invited to their selection weekend, and then my mum trod on my foot, and she caused an ingrown toenail [laughing], which then caused an infection, which then meant I couldn't do the fitness and I was terrified of failing the fitness. I was a lot slimmer then, I probably wouldn't have failed the fitness, but I thought I would, so I kind of deferred, they were very kind they said I had a year so I could get myself kind of sorted and in that year, my career albeit at a very young age, started to go quite quickly and started to develop, so I had to kind of put the police on the backburner ‘cause I was really loving what I was doing, and then sometime later some four or five years later, I'd done quite well and I got my weekends back and one of, I was an area manager at the time and one of my team, in our Folkestone store actually, was a special in Kent, and I’d kind of ruled out specials ‘cause I thought fetes, carnivals, not interested, you either do it properly or you don't do it, and he was telling me all the stuff he got up to in Kent, and then the thing that sealed it I went “is there a fitness test?” he went “no” [laughing] “perfect, I'll apply” and the rest as they say is kind of history.

PSE Natalie Hardy: So, you've got your mum to thank then?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I mean I don't know if I’d thank her, but yes, I probably would thank her.

PSE Natalie Hardy: So, for people who don't know, what is the Special Constabulary?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Great question so, the Special Constabulary ultimately, you can put it in many different ways, but is exactly the same as the regular force, but with no payment, volunteers, kind of part-time, if you want to call it that way. You’ve got to do 16 hours a month minimum, and it's made up of all walks of life and pretty much, you know, a lot of people have a day job as well so, they're doing their regular paid employment and they come out to kind of volunteer whether it's the weekends, whether it's evenings, whether it's daytimes, whatever works for them, and they wear the same uniform, they have the same powers, you can pretty much certainly in Kent, you can pretty much be in almost every department bar a few, that our regular colleagues do, and kind of do the same job but just doing it, kind of on a part-time basis.

PSE Natalie Hardy: So, you're doing it for free, so you must love what you're doing.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: You know and that's volunteering right. So some people do it for the scouts, some people do it for the lifeboats, some people do it for St John's ambulance, lots of people do it for you know charities, dog shelters etc. etc. We just happen to do it from a policing standpoint, and so I think, yeah you know you there's something about policing that kind of draws you to it and for some people, like it was for me it was this kind of long drawn out thing, for others it's a moment, or a situation where they think ‘I want to do something you know’ and I think that's the beauty of it, that's almost the sort of the secret sauce to it all, is that everybody has their reason for doing it. Some people don't even know their reason until they've done it. If I had joined the regulars the Traffic department is where I'd have probably wanted to spend some time, and I never thought we'd get that opportunity as a special constable but, so Roads Policing, white hats, motorways, big roads, crashes all of that kind of stuff, but if we were to kind of segment it into you know what the force would understand it to be and what the public would want, denying criminals the use of the road, not all drivers are criminals, but most criminals drive, so you know using our legislation particularly around roads, road safety is important. Then you've got preventing people from being killed, or seriously injured on the roads, so kind of the fatal four so, if you're thinking use of mobile phones most people understand, speed, it's kind of a big one, drink and drug driving, you know drug driving becoming more and more prevalent, and then fundamentally in a quite an innocuous one, but responsible for so many deaths that are needless, putting your seat belt on, you know and so from a Roads Policing standpoint, I think it's one of the best departments in the force, I am biased, but the reason I think that is, whatever kind of strand of operational frontline policing you are in or you're interested in, Roads Policing gives you the opportunity, to do that, with the best vehicles we've got, some of the best training that we've got and to work with some of the best people we've got so, whatever it is you kind of want to do, if you like getting hold of burglars bizarrely, Roads Policing can absolutely do that, if you want to prevent people being killed or seriously injured, Roads Policing can absolutely do that, pretty much whatever there is that's out there operationally, Roads Policing can be a part of that.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and how has your career evolved since you've been with Kent Police?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Well, it's my single, employer, is the best way I can put it, even though I'm not technically employed so, I've done this for 29 years, 30 years next year. In my career in my day job, I've obviously hopped from employer to employer like many people, but Kent Police has kind of been my longest single employer. So, I started out as a special constable in 1995 at Gravesend, back in the day where we had lots of kind of individual police stations, in individual towns. I think back then you kind of had two groups of specials, you kind of had those who really like the fetes and the carnivals and all that kind of stuff, and then you had the people who just wanted to be out on the street on a Friday and a Saturday night and getting stuck in.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Was that you?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: There's a possibility that that was more me, but you had to do both, and that was kind of the game, but what I learned was, the people that really kind of specialised in the second bit, that were getting stuck into all of the day job stuff, really also excelled in the fetes and the carnivals because typically the fetes and the carnivals didn't really have any problems but when they did, you needed to take control much as you might do on a Friday or Saturday night, so if you had that experience, it was very easy to move into that, whereas colleagues who maybe didn't have that, sometimes were a little bit shell-shocked by what was going on, it took some time to register what was happening and that's quite common for anybody who first joins the police I would say the Special Constabulary, but I think the police, particularly if you've never been in any form of confrontation, sometimes you can't believe [laughing] that something's happening in front of you and it takes you a moment, to register it and then react. Whereas in those situations because we've kind of been out on the nighttime economy stuff, we’re

PSE Natalie Hardy: You’re prepared.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: We’re just prepared and kind of reacted. So, I spent 14 years at Gravesend, and I was just coming to that 14th year and if I'm woefully honest, I was getting a little bit bored with it all. I had done everything we could do, as specials at least at that point, in operational local policing, I had great relationships with lots of people, but I was kind, it was something missing and I didn't know what it was, and I was just starting to think about ‘is this for me anymore?’

PSE Natalie Hardy: and you were still doing your regular job, at that time?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Still doing the day job, yeah absolutely, and then our deputy officer, a deputy chief officer at the time came along, and held a meeting as he would periodically do with us all, and he said “oh we're going to start up a kind of division of specials on traffic on Roads Policing” and I was, couldn't believe my ears, and I said to my colleague who bizarrely now works for Roads Policing, I said to him “I'm going to do that” and he was like “why are you going to do that?” like you kind of everybody knows you here you can get what you need, you can do what you want, why would you do that, and I said “a. because that I would have loved to have done that, as a regular officer, but b. the thing that I feel like I'm missing, to do this job better, is the ability to drive, response driving, blue light driving to most people” and I think if any, if that will ever come, because back in the day we could only drive a car from A to B, and actually it was fairly late in that, that we were suddenly allowed to stop a vehicle. You couldn't go to a job on Response because you weren't trained, and rightly so. I thought it would come for them because that's the core part of the Roads Policing role is driving, I said “so a. I've always wanted to do it and b. it kind of fits with what I'd like to do next” lots of people told us, or told me, ‘it won't work, you'll be the third in crew, they won't train you, they won't, they won't want you there, you know’

PSE Natalie Hardy: so, there's quite a negative opinion then among your team

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Yep absolutely, because it's change, and its fear and that's all quite normal, you know

PSE Natalie Hardy: but you wanted that challenge?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Oh without question, well you've got to be in it to win it, but I also think my day job and developing my career, my day job, I'd seen all of this before, it's just different you know it's departmentally different, the company's different, but all the relationships, all the behaviours, all people's worries, all their fears that's all the same it doesn't change, just the badge changes, and I kind of knew that as I'd learned in the 14 years as a special, when you spend eight or ten hours in a car with someone, you will get on, you know and you will build a relationship and you do that one person at a time, and then before long, you know in a team of ten officers, you've worked with most of them, and of course they talk when you're not there, so the relationship you've built, permeates beyond you. So, you know you look for those opportunities to get stuck into things, you look for the opportunities to take a load off them earlier, you look for the opportunity to do the rubbish job, that saves them doing it, because you know, that that's what’s going to build your reputation, and as a consequence I kind of thought if there, if they are in any way the same as most human beings, and I think they are, [laughing] this will work, this will work and so

PSE Natalie Hardy: and it did?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Well, yes, it did work.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Tell me about the training when you first started out, what was the training like?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: It was pretty basic, but it was of its time, so it was a lot of kind of home study, then you really had a weekend, arresting people, stop and search, and kind of a, view I think of the force on you around what's your judgment like, do you do you look kind of someone that we can kind of train, and you're going to go out there and not be a liability.

If you look at it today, my lord it's like completely the opposite, so now I think it's six months’ worth of training, I think it's more or less like getting trained like a regular officer in fact, you can now transfer from the specials directly into the regulars. So, it's completely different, so your officer safety training that you get, your first aid training that you get, a lot of training around kind of your judgment and situations, the national decision model, all of that it is night and day, and so whilst you'll never feel the moment you step out ready, because you never do, you are so much more ready than I guess we were kind of back in the day, so yeah it's kind of second to none now.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and how has the safety equipment changed for example?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Well, as specials we particularly in Kent, we have our kind of own personal issue equipment which sounds kind of obvious, but not a lot of other forces do. So our own kind of ballistic and stab protection vests, our own PAVA spray incapacitant spray, our own batons and our own cuffs, and we've got officers now who are actually trained in Taser, and whilst they draw Taser the same as everybody else, again obviously they carry that on every single shift. So, from an equipment standpoint, uniform standpoint, you know you probably wouldn't know the difference unless you knew really what you were looking for, you wouldn't know the difference between the special constable and the regular just in terms of appearance.

PSE Natalie Hardy: So, Roads Policing, that's a specialist area, are there any others that you can work in?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Yeah so in Kent, again we're, incredibly lucky, we have our Search and Marine Unit, and we put people through, kind of the same training as our regular colleagues, powerboat courses etc. We have our dogs unit, so we have teams working with the Dog Section, we have teams on our Special Branch, or in Special Branch I should say, we've got volunteers in policing from a mounted perspective. So, there's a huge amount, and then we also get the ability to be instructors, for certain things so one of my colleagues, is a public order instructor. So, he works training specials and regulars, when is, when he's required, in public order tactics. I do driver training, so I help to train people specials and regular sometimes, with standard response so, blue light driving the kind of the first level of that, and that's been a dream come, that's not even a dream come true, I don't think I would have even dreamt that, and I you know, got a huge thanks to the force, for kind of investing in me. It took a long time, but without the forces backing, without my colleagues at drive a training, without my RPU (Roads Policing Unit) colleagues, I wouldn't have been able to do that, and that's great because it prevents us having to take training resource from our regular colleagues, to train specials to do that, but we're all the product of that because it sort of began that way, so I can train specials now, to do that, and obviously I'm free, they're free, yes we invested in the training but that kind of gives back time and time again. So, you know a huge amount of things you can specialise in, but when you join, just be good at policing first and then you can do the other stuff.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and over the 30 years how have you found, finding the time to do this?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: So, what's interesting is and I wouldn't have known this in the first five years, but we have people from all walks of life. So, we've got investment bankers, we've got train drivers, we've got painters and decorators, we've got heating engineers, we've got bus drivers, we've got admin assistants, we've got property developers, you name it, if you can think of a job, within the Special Constabulary it's probably there, but one of the things that's amazing is that over time, people go through different stages in their lives. So, you know when you're in your kind of those early late teens early 20s, it might be first relationships, it might be your first home, it could be getting your first car, and the thing that's interesting is that, that has a different pull on people's time and availability. So, some of our younger officers have loads of time, you know, they'll come in and do hundreds of hours, and then they'll meet someone and then the hours will drop off because it's ‘hello world, I'm in love, I want to be with them’, and then it comes back maybe as the relationship grows or as it ends, that sort of comes back, then you see people who have kids for the first time and the hours drop off, but they've done loads and loads of hours and put loads of time in, then as you get older still those you know getting married, maybe getting divorced you know, so you see this kind of thing people's lives, and I think what's amazing with the Special Constabulary is particularly when you've got these career specials who've done 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years, when you see it, it doesn't surprise you, you know, and because of that you get those times where someone's hours drop off, but they've done five, ten years where they've put in everything. Well, we can definitely pay back to them by just taking the pressure off, take the time you need, you know, all that experience hasn't gone away, but I think when you're dealing with people through their lifetime, you have to expect that, and as a person within the Special Constabulary you can expect that back, so it's not a case of ‘but if this happens’, we’ll work through it, you know, if you've paid in, if you've done everything that you know, you've given 100%, you'll get that back.

PSE Natalie Hardy: So, do you find you see that the most then, the career specials, or is it a steppingstone for some, to potentially you know, an entry route for them to potentially become …

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Without question, try before you buy. You know it’s one of the beauties of this, is that you can get a real kind of sense of what policing's like, what the environment's like, what you're going to experience day in day out. It's not the same as everything, in terms of the regulars, but it's a good 95% of it, so yeah it's a real steppingstone for many, but actually we have a huge tranche of people that are career specials, and some of it been the same way as it happened for me, they come in maybe economics takes over, and it just kind of works better, and I think that's one of the things Kent does well because the amount of things we can get involved in, you don't feel like it's a trade-off, you can have both, so yeah that works well.

PSE Natalie Hardy: And you mentioned that you know there's a real variety of people, you know from all different roles, as specials in the county. I mean that must mean that businesses are pretty supportive then, for people to do this in their spare time or maybe take some time off, do some flexible working.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Absolutely.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Do you find that you know, businesses are? The businesses are quite supportive.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: The businesses I've worked in since I joined over the 30 years, all of them have been very pro, me doing this. Whether it's I might need time off for court, a lot of them have never insisted I take holiday for instance, they kind of see there's a benefit to me from a leadership standpoint and I talked about communication and perspective. I've been able to add more and more perspective to meetings or to situations, as a consequence of policing, you know, and I think it helps it's one of the reasons I am quite calm in most situations, even in kind of corporate situations, it's because that perspective is, nobody's dying in what we're doing here, [laughing] you know, this is about usually money, it's either cost or revenue, let's just slow down, you know, it's not the same as being at the side of the road with somebody doing CPR so let's just put it in perspective, but one of the things I when I first, the first kind of shift I ever went on, I remember sitting in the parade room, eight or nine officers came in with the sergeant, and they went through something which is fairly standard which is basically the call signs, and the officers that were going to be assigned to it. Well if you don't know any officers, so you don't know their names, you don't even know, you know what a call sign is but you don't know what the call signs are, you have no clue what's happening and it was really uncomfortable, it wasn't the people they didn't do that, no one knows you, and it was a few of those types of things that made me kind of decide, I'd like to be a tutor because I think there's a gap between, the training we get, the training you then get on your division, but the bit in the middle where someone takes you through the operational stuff. So, we're going to go in here and we're going to sit down, the team will come in in a minute and you're going to get assigned a call sign and a and a name of somebody who you don't know, and I'm going to introduce you to them and this is what's going to happen, this is where you're going to go and get your equipment and your kit, here is a car, [laughing] this is what works in this particular car, this is what we do, because that gap for me was missing.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Sure, so you identified that opportunity and then how did you take that forward?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I just you know, I made sure that when, you know any new officers joined us, we would do an on-site induction at the police station itself, and I would take them into the briefing room first, and for instance on the walls would normally be names of offenders and pictures and how they're linked to other people, but they would have a little drawstring blind that you pull down because it's sensitive data, well if you didn't know that was there, you wouldn't even know what that information was, or why you looked at it, and then the names that would get called out at the briefing by the sergeant, oh you need to look out for Joe Bloggs, well who the hell’s Joe Bloggs, here's Joe Bloggs this is where he lives, this is what he looks like, here are his friends. So, you're helping people to knit those sorts of things together. Right let's go out to a car, there's no pressure, because we're not going out anywhere, here is the PR set, because we used to have two radios at the time in the car, here is the main county set, we don't really use that, but you need to have it on. We use this all the time, so when you get in the car you switch that on and you switch your radio off ‘cause it's it is your radio just saves the battery, all the small operational bits. Like today for instance, to get into any of our car radios you have to put in a certain code. Well, what if no one tells you the code?

PSE Natalie Hardy: Sure, so you being an officer out there you can establish what they would need to know, and you can kind of fill those gaps.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: ‘cause I want them to feel comfortable. So, how do you make people feel welcome, how do you make people feel as comfortable as they can do, and most people think they're at fault, you know we apologise, as a nation we apologise for I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, sorry but, how do we, I'm so sorry, that's it's down to us.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Yeah, don't be sorry, yes.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: to make it work for them, and they're volunteers. You know, they are volunteers, even if they were paid, I would still do the same thing, but they are volunteers.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and I guess for you, moving from Gravesend to a central role with Traffic, means you can move around the county too so, you're not only getting a different type of work experience you're actually getting to work in other areas of the county, which has got to be helpful when it comes to building up that experience?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Absolutely, but it puts you back in the same position as the person that joins.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Sure.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: because you go to a different custody suite, and they all work slightly differently, the premise is the same. You go to look for a computer to do your statement, where's that, oh it's upstairs in that office, no idea where that is. So, you kind of put yourself in those situations, but sometimes it's only by putting yourself in those situations, that you feel that discomfort that you kind of learn more, and I think that's one of the things that made us successful at Gravesend, as we built our cadre of specials, really operationally capable specials, and built our reputation with our regular colleagues, and then we used the same thing when we started up the RPU.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and so, let's talk about the fact that you have a full-time job, you have a personal life, you're also volunteering. How do you balance all of that?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Well, I don't know anything different.

PSE Natalie Hardy: When do you sleep?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: [Laughing]. I do sleep, I don't know anything different. I joined when I was 24, I'm just coming up for 54 next year so, for the last kind of 30 years, I've always wanted to do this. You know some people go and watch football, some people go and play football, for some people it's they go to the pub, you know for other people they'll go to restaurants, it's whatever their thing is, this is my thing. So, I don't, I come to do this for a rest is probably the best way I can put it, yeah because it's completely different to the day job and so your, you know, your mind is occupied in a very different way. The people you're engaging with, the situations that you're in, it's completely different and I kind of know myself if I, if I wake up in the morning and I think ‘eww I'm not going’ because that's my signal to me, that is like, if I'm not fully enthused about it, my body's kind of going, or my head is going ‘you need some time, so don't go’, but that's taken years to kind of to know that, and I think policing is quite seasonal as well. So, that there are, when you first join you do as many hours as you possibly can. The upside of that is you get quite a lot of experience quite rapidly, the downside of that is you think you've got a lot of experience, and you haven't, but you feel like you have, and because I have this personally this view of policing being quite seasonal in terms of the shift patterns you do, so, a lot of specials do nighttime economy, so they'll do the late to night shift, well doing earlies is a very different policing proposition, lates is quite a different policing proposition so, if you don't experience all of those things you can come away thinking policing is this, when actually it's this, and it's this, and it's this, and it's this, and it's this, and it's this.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and presumably every day is different. I mean to your point, policing is tough,

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Yeah

PSE Natalie Hardy: and you do get a rest from it in your day job, whereas regular officers would not, so I don't know whether that's a selling point for being a special.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I think so.

PSE Natalie Hardy: You know you get that experience that you can then translate into your everyday life, and your everyday job, but you're giving something back to the community as well and you're learning.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Yeah, well if you take the that point around the police the public and the public are the police. I think special constables are the absolute embodiment of that, and so we really kind of walk and straddle that line, of both. Now obviously every police officer is a member of the public, at the same time, but you're also a product of your environment, and you're a product of kind of what goes on around you, and so one of the things about moving to Roads Policing is that you are suddenly exposed far more greatly to the general public again. One of the things when you're kind of doing the operational divisional 999 policing, is a lot of the time you're just dealing with the same people, the same people again and again, the same criminals again and again and again and again and again, and they're kind of outer circle who are usually not particularly pro police so, it's very easy to feel that everybody hates you, everybody hates the police, that's just not the case and then you then sort of roll that over with social media and the algorithms and then you suddenly believe what literally the whole world is against you, and it's just not the case, and I think from one of the things I found going to Roads Policing was that, actually I deal with, on any given shift, most people have had a bad day, so if we go to a some sort of prang, some sort of collision, most people have just had a bad day, you know, and it's their one collision maybe in their lifetime or in a decade. It might have been our third that day and you have to look after them and treat them and investigate and do everything you need to do as if, it's never happened before. Equally, you know you're like someone who's just who's gone too fast, for whatever the reason, not a bad person not a criminal, and you’ve got to deal with that, and some people will thank you at the end of that, and some people won't someone's picked up their phone and we all kind of know don't do that, but I've dealt with many people who are perfectly nice decent people, who either didn't know [laughing], or just had a moment of madness, but what you find is, that most of the time, the public are pretty pro, the public are pretty pro, and they're good at a lot of stuff for us.

I remember not long after the officer was killed at the Houses of Parliament, we had breakfast one Saturday morning, my team, it was an all-out day, and we went to have breakfast at a cafe as we sometimes do, just to kind of catch up with each other, and as we were chatting, this party got up from another table to leave, and I was sat on the edge of the table next to the walkway, and this woman as she just passed me she just put her hand on my shoulder, didn't do anything else, [patted shoulder] she just patted my shoulder and carried on walking.

PSE Natalie Hardy: How does that make you feel?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Well, that particular time because it was so soon, my colleagues who were facing me stopped eating, and went “what was that?” and I said I think that’s a thanks.

PSE Natalie Hardy: That's really nice.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: and it was just a little moment you know, and I think broadly speaking, you know the public are great, in roads they're brilliant at phoning stuff in, on the motorway debris on the motorway, I don't know who teaches them that, I wasn't taught it in my driving test.

PSE Natalie Hardy: No, nor me.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: but they are phenomenal at phoning us up to go ‘there's a step ladder there’ or ‘there's a ratchet strap’ or ‘there's an old bit of tyre’ and they also want to get out of your way, you know so, when you are driving on blue lights to stuff, if you give them the time. Yeah, there's always someone who will do something silly, but if you give them the time, they will get out your way so the public broadly speaking, you know I think they are all pretty pro.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Have you had moments in your career where you thought ‘actually this is a bit of a risk, I'm actually a bit scared for my life’. [laughing]

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I don't know that you think about, I don't know that you think about the risks, 99% of the time. I think the first time you go very fast in a police car; particularly on the Roads Policing side there is a moment your brain “goes what if the tyre burst now, what's going to happen?” So, over time that kind of goes away because you realise the checks that the officers do and the level of training etc. but you're also acutely aware that you know there's only so much you can do, you know, and when people have gone before you, have lost their lives, and they might have been better than you, then you know you kind of you just do the best you can do.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and how do you manage the impact, the emotional impact that the job has?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I've been, I've been lucky, because you can be at the wrong place at the at the wrong time, and you can have all the communication skills in the world, there are people who want to do officers harm for no other reason than just, and it doesn't matter, so that's why I say I'm kind of lucky, but I think when you hear of colleagues when you hear of friends who have been hurt, one of my colleagues back in the day at Gravesend was stabbed, and it was his vest, that saved him, and it was as simple as knocking on the door, a door opening and a knife, there was no other conversation, that's what I talk about lucky, you know. I don't, you'd have to ask everyone, I don't really think about it is the honest answer, because I think if you gave it too much thought you probably wouldn't.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Do you feel you can talk to your colleagues though?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Oh, without question.

PSE Natalie Hardy: You can talk to each other about it, vent and

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: oh yes

PSE Natalie Hardy: and learn

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I think what's interesting, as I've got older and particularly now looking after the operational side for our team, is our younger officers, you kind of look back and see yourself, back then, and so it's encouraging them to actually talk, and one of my colleagues went to a, quite a nasty collision that ended up being a fatality, and he's young in service, and another officer, who I don't know as well, isn't on our team, but was at the same job, another special constable, who messaged me to say ‘this person I think could do with a call’. So, I phoned him, and he was still at the job, and I went ‘are you okay?’ and he was like, I could hear he was shaken he went ‘I'm a bit shaken, but yes I'm okay’ and I said ‘so listen, you know, whatever you've done, you have done the best you can do’ and it wasn't until later I watched his body worn video back and I saw the extent to what he had to deal with, at that age, at that length of service, and you just feel, really impressed, and a degree of pride for him, as an individual, for the team, and you get a sense of just, what would I have done there, with my service, what would I have done, and how do I add value to him without second guessing him.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and self-reflection is very important, isn't it?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Absolutely.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and that's how we learn.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Yes, and that you get taught a lot about that, particularly through the various kinds of training that we get, whether it's around use of force, whether it's around our driving and our reflection, those officers who go, get on a Taser etc. self-reflection is huge in policing, absolutely huge, and if you've got the ability to do that and criticise yourself and I don't mean that in a negative way, but in a sense of maybe I have done that or maybe I could have done this, you know you laying down the blueprint for the future, as opposed to it is what it is, you know I could, what else could I do, you know that's too easy, that's too easy you're letting yourself down with that. You've got to be able to reflect, you don't have to tell everyone else, but you've got to be able to do it.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and 30 years that's a long time, that's a long time to dedicate your services to Kent Police and that's commendable, there must have been a lot of moments that you can recall that have been a high for you, but is there any one time that you recall that's a standout moment?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Oh, there's quite a few, but they're for different reasons. So, one of my I don't know favourites the right word, one moment very, relatively early on was ‘just one of those days’ driving from Gravesend to Bluewater to go and walk around Bluewater for the day, and as we came off the A2 at Bean, there was a coach parked, kind of on the roundabout and an ambulance in front of it. Well we stop right, and so we got out and we went to speak to the ambulance crew, couldn’t find them, they were on the coach and there was a man on the coach who was having a heart attack, and the ambulance crew were dealing with that, he was conscious and he was breathing, but he was having a heart attack, and they were trying to work out how they were going to get him off the coach, ‘cause he couldn't stand. So, they decided they're going to get backboard and we were trying to work it out and, in the end we decided we'd open the rear kind of fire exit that there used to be, which would open out onto the roundabout and onto the road, so we kind of ran out, stopped all the traffic on the roundabout.

PSE Natalie Hardy: How many of you were there?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Just the two of us.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Just two.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: and we kind of held the stretcher [arms above his head] ‘cause those coaches are quite tall, both of us were quite tall, we kind of, as they as the ambulance crew fed the stretcher out we kind of, held it above our heads and then we had to wait for one of them to come out, and we walked back and we eventually kind of lowered it, and we popped it on the on the stretcher on the ground and the public were as they normally are actually, were fantastic ‘do you need any help?, do you need any help?, do you need any help?’ and, then I looked down at the man who was having the heart attack, and he was just, he was just kind of just looking up at me and his eyes were, and he just grabbed my hand, and he squeezed my hand, and I squeezed his, and I kind of looked at him in my head ‘I went what do you say now?’ ‘cause, you don't want to be kind of, I don't know twee, you don't want to be flippant about it, but you also don't want to be negative and you don't want to, so I said “you're going to be absolutely fine”, I said “you may not know this, but you are literally five minutes from the hospital, Darenth Valley Hospital” I said “and they're fabulous at this kind of stuff” I said “you're going to be absolutely fine” he didn't really say much, he just kept squeezing my hand, so I walked him to the, well I didn't walk him, I walked with him to the ambulance and we got him on, and then I was just trying to get him to let go of my hand, and then off they went.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Well, he obviously felt very safe with you, which is great because, sometimes with policing if you turn up at the door it's for a reason that perhaps isn't in favour of the person answering the door.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: no, no.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and their experience of liaising with you is not going to be a positive one. You know, when paramedics turn up, they're there essentially to save your life.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Yes.

PSE Natalie Hardy: It's good that you can work with partners like that to help protect people.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Absolutely.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and I think to be able to say that the, you know you've given some examples of the public, being really happy with the service and, happy with the work that you've done, that's really reassuring, do you find that's reassuring to hear?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Yeah, because I again, I think it's just too easy to be the product of the environment and not to look beyond it. If you're constantly arresting people, which is part of the job, you're going to experience conflict and negativity at times, but, you can still respect people, you know and I've often found that you can be rolling around on the floor with someone you get them into handcuffs and you're like right ‘we're all over, let's just get you into custody, we'll get you a cup of tea etc. etc.’ and so much of the time, that will just decompress, something, or I can remember talking to one guy [laughing] who was, he said he was going to fail a breath test and then when he did he was going to kick off, and I remember I said to him “okay, so well just a couple of things, one let's just do the breath test that's for that I said, but secondly I don't know about you I said but I'm getting too old for rolling around on the floor” I said “and look and the other thing is simply this, by all means if you kick off that's up to you” I said “but has that ever worked, like, have we ever gone well all right then” and I just gave him you know a little wink and a little bit of a smirk, could have gone either way, he went “oh just give us the thing” he did it, he failed, he went “come on then” and walked around, and got into the back of the van.

PSE Natalie Hardy: but you must have learnt how to do that because obviously there's a skill isn't there in trying to diffuse a situation with words, which I would imagine is what we all want to be able to do in the first instance.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: What I tend to think is, if I were them, now not me as Terry, but if I were them in their situation, what would I think. What is, what do I want out of this? You know and we grew up on a council estate and it was quite rough, and the other half of our family is from Ireland and they grew up on a really rough council estate, and they had interactions with the police, and I remember going on holiday, being around that, and all of those people thought they were in the right, and they weren't bad people, you know, it was the police were the enemy, but they were all good people and they were in the right. Even though probably some of them were doing bad stuff, and you know so sometimes when you go on to estates, I go to places where I recognise that, I kind of think to them, they are that. So, the worst thing I can do, and it's not to say at times you don't have to be firm and all of those things, is to behave in the way they expect me to, and actually to be able to just kind of talk to people, because it's they see the uniform, you know, and so much of the time you will meet or certainly back in the day, I would meet people I'd arrested a couple of times and you’d show up go ‘look’.

PSE Natalie Hardy: ‘back again?’

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: “Here we go, so, what's it going to be? I'll be reasonable you know”, and you see that with regular officers as well, they’re just people have got an innate skill with people..

PSE Natalie Hardy: in diffusing situations

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: in preventing them escalating or ‘get so and so, if you get so and so I'll go to the van’ now there that's a, you know a blessing and a curse. On the one hand great, on the other hand you're not in control, so you don't get to dictate what we do, because that's a big thing, but then, time also teaches you that well sometimes that person's already on their way so let's just, doesn't have to kick off, let's just take a minute and, you know we're going to be sat here anyway, let's just wait and we'll just walk them in. So, everybody has their way.

PSE Natalie Hardy: So going back to your team. So, you're a special, you work with regular officers as well, what's the camaraderie like in your in your team? Do you get on well?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Our specials team, really well. So, it's the best team I've worked with, in the police, but again, that is because I have learned from seeing other really good teams in the police, and the first team of regulars that I worked with back in Gravesend, who were called Four-Section, you either a section or a team, they were a section, who I worked with almost exclusively for that 14 years. I worked with or saw several sergeants come through that team who just embodied really great leadership, and none of them were professionally trained, you know; they were all just people, people.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Learnt from experience?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Kind of, yeah.

PSE Natalie Hardy: What skills would you say you have acquired in your policing career and vice versa as well in your, you know, private business career, and how have you used those, to benefit both sides if you like?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I think two things that policing gives you is perspective, and communication. You know perspective in that, you kind of have to be able to look at all situations from 360 degrees. So, if you were to think of a bicycle wheel with a hub in the middle and the various spokes, to be able to look at this situation from that perspective, or that perspective, or that perspective ,or that perspective, but that's also comes from my kind of professional life as well where you might be negotiating or, you would think about negotiating and you kind of think ‘okay, what does this group want from this and how do I sit myself in their position’ and ‘what do we want from this’ and ‘what's that’ and then ‘what's someone else's position, what's someone else's position, what's someone else's position’ so, I think that's, really important. It's the same as, you know the perspective of when you're building relationships with our regular colleagues, you know the roads policing similar to some of our other specialisms where specials are involved, we broadly get all the same training as our regular colleagues do. So, you could say we're trained to exactly the same level. I can say we receive the same training; we train to the same level at the point that we have the training, yes, but we don't do it as often as them when you think about day in day out. Also, I think the perspective sometimes that when you come in as a special constable, you might have you might come in weekly, you might come in fortnightly, but the way I normally try and share this with my special colleagues is, imagine in your day job if this volunteer showed up periodically when you didn't know when they were coming, they sat at your desk, they drank coffee from your mug, they used your computer, they messed the settings up on your chair to make it comfortable for them, and then they disappeared, and then in a week or two's time they were back again, just after you' got everything set and they did it again. If you don't have a relationship with them what are you going to feel about them. You know, and that is what we do with our regular colleagues when we come in, is that we appear. Now if we've got really great relationships ‘Terry, how are you haven't seen you for ages, what's going on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah’.; If you haven't, who are you? and it's not negative, it's like I don't know you, so I don't know what you're capable of, I don't who do I put you with, are you okay to be out on your own, all of those things so the relationship piece becomes everything. Now marry that with communication, so, understanding that from a communication standpoint if I spend time with all of these people over time we're going to connect, it's going to happen, we're going to have conversation, we're going to, I'm going to know more about you, you're going to know more about me, we're going to do this policing thing along the way and understand what we're both good at and not good at, but also the sergeants are going to see me more, they're going to see me at jobs, they're going to know that I can and can't do – great! You know and that reputation, and that trust and confidence I think it's the US Secret Service their motto is ‘worthy of trust and confidence’, they have that on their shields. That for me is kind of what it's about being a special within the regulars. Are you, not from your own standpoint, but from their standpoint, are you worthy of trust and confidence?

PSE Natalie Hardy: What would you say to somebody who was considering signing up to the Special Constabulary?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Oh, if you're thinking about it, just do it! Just do it, you can't lose, you can't lose. It is, that and I'm not, this isn't just say, policing, but it is the greatest show on earth.

PSE Natalie Hardy: and are you glad you did it for so long and you didn't take the step to become a police officer?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: I'm very, very pleased I didn't become a regular officer. I think I genuinely have the best of both worlds. I have nothing but admiration for the regulars. because I couldn't do what they do every day. As much as every day is different, the level of resilience that you need to have, the constant change in policing and what's expected and what's required, whether that's the expectation of government, whether that's the expectation of the public, whether that's the expectation of different factions of the public, whether it's the expectations of the force, a force, any force, most of us in our day jobs, will make mistakes, and no one's really going to know. You know, our boss and it'll be ‘oh yeah I'm going to do that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah’, we seem to not accept that our emergency services, and other kind of public bodies should be able to make mistakes, you know, and so that pressure that's out there, particularly in a world that's socially networked which I certainly didn't have when we kind of started, the ability of everybody filming at all times which can be great, there's a lot of pros to that as well, that’s significant.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Can add to the pressure too, can’t it?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Without question, without question and you know and you only have to look at the London Bridge attacks and that PC from the BTP (British Transport Police) who took on all three attackers just with his baton, severely, severely injured. Off-duty PCs running into stuff with no, they'll all do that, they'll all do that, you know and so, I think about the people I've worked with over the years, whether I know them really well, or you just show up to a job ‘cause somebody's pressed the button, and I look at now so many young officers sort of coming in, and you think, you know this is the future and it's too easy to go ‘well, I wouldn't have done that, and back in the day’ well, we lived at a different time you know so, I think the pressure today is just significantly high.

PSE Natalie Hardy: You must have seen a lot of changes just in society, not just policing.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Absolutely yeah, I mean we had no mobile phones when we started. There was no, you know social media, the explosion in calls when we got mobile phones became, you know prolific.

PSE Natalie Hardy: What best describes your career?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Not in a grand way but life-changing, because it kind of really has changed my life. Rewarding, I think everyone will say that but yes really, really, rewarding. It's kind of a privilege really, because I've got to do things that you couldn't pay to do, and admittedly I didn't get paid to do them, [laughing] but a privilege.

PSE Natalie Hardy: But you do it because you love it

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: and that is the thing. When people say ‘thank you for your service’ all of that kind of stuff don't forget I've got a huge amount out of it.

PSE Natalie Hardy: So, we're now going into our off-the-cuff segment, something a little bit different. So, I'm going to ask you a few questions. What is your go to snack when you're on duty?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Okay, this is a sausage and cheese stick usually on tiger bread. It is from Sue’s, you know other establishments are available, but Sue’s tea-van on the A228 just close to Junction four of the M20, and a tea with two sugars

PSE Natalie Hardy: Thanks Sue.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Thank you Sue, and Nigel, Nigel cooks it, Sue serves it it's a team effort.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Brilliant! and if you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Time travel. Time travel, I mean that could get very complicated, but let's just for now say, time travel.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Excellent and if you could choose any celebrity to join you on a shift, who would it be?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Michael McIntyre.

PSE Natalie Hardy: And why?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Michael McIntyre, all day

PSE Natalie Hardy: to make you laugh?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Definitely to make me laugh, without question. I think I would just be; I'd be, I think we'd end up giving him a raft of material for a new show, but yeah definitely him.

PSE Natalie Hardy: What's one thing you wish the public knew about a special constable?

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Just this kind of ripple effect that you have and I think, there's this story about, this chap running up a beach and it's a beautiful morning and he's running up the beach, got his headphones in, and I always think of it as in California, I don't know where it was, but anyway as he's running he can see this little girl in the distance and she's sort of bending down to the sand and then she's throwing things into the sea, and as he gets a bit closer he can see a mum sort of sat on a dune looking at it all, and as he starts to see what's in front of him, it is thousands and thousands and thousands of starfish, that have been washed up on the beach, and he can see the little girl picking up starfish and just throwing them back into the water, so as he sort of comes up to it, takes his headphones out, looks at mum sort of just kind of nods and he says “what are you doing?” and she said “oh, I'm throwing the starfish back into the water because, they've all been washed up and they're going to die” so he looks at the literally the thousands of it, and he went “but there's thousands of them, what difference are you going to make?” so she picks up this starfish throws it into the water and says “made a difference to that one” and that, is it really in a nutshell. You know you can look at everything and go ‘too hard, too difficult, what difference will it make’. You know you speak to somebody who's had their life saved by a St John's Ambulance volunteer, or by the lifeboats, made a difference to that one, you know. What about the people, who, members of the public, who step in to help someone else, no training, made a difference to that one, and you know and I think that's it, it's like it's just about, do something. Like by all means everyone has an opinion on everything, but it's really easy to comment from the sideline, you know.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Take a chance

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Put a uniform on and come and understand it and do your bit, because you'll do something positive, you'll do something positive

PSE Natalie Hardy: Well, thank you Terry. Volunteering is incredibly selfless, and the force are very lucky to have you.

Special Inspector Terry Connolly: Ah, pleasure thank you.

PSE Natalie Hardy: Thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode follow us on Instagram, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn where we'll be posting previews of our upcoming episodes. Don't forget you can watch this episode by subscribing to our YouTube channel and find out more about the variety of career opportunities available by searching Kent Police careers. Bye for now [Music].

 

 [L41]I would say 'sauce' not 'source'

 

 [L42]typo

 

 [L43]source/sauce