THE CHAIR ASKS


JOHN APTER (JA): Many people will know your story. You have always been very open about the mental health crisis that you went through as a serving officer and what caused you to leave policing, a career you loved dearly. Would you mind talking through your journey?


Thank you for the opportunity to chat, it’s a genuine privilege and pleasure. I often begin by saying this, and I never grow tired of saying it and I mean it with every fibre of my being, and that is I love the job. I love it with all my heart and soul, and I love the people who do the job. Although I no longer remain in policing, policing remains in me and I still feel part of the policing family.


I joined in 1992 at the age of 22. It was the only job I ever applied for, the only job I ever wanted to do. It’s what I envisaged spending the whole of my working life doing but it came to a slightly earlier end than planned. At the end of April 2013, I had a massive nervous breakdown. At the time, I was a chief superintendent in the Met and I had the privilege of being the Borough Commander for Southwark in South London. I was surrounded by an extraordinary group of men and women who came into work every day because they wanted to change the world and that’s exactly what they did, one day at a time, one life at a time. Although I made it back to work eventually, I never made it back to full operational duties and, in 2018, I was medically retired.


I know you have been really open about your journey, but how did you feel in 2013 when this came to a head? How was it for you back then?


I was 43 and had been a police officer for more than 20 years and, in all that time, I had never heard anyone talk about our mental health as police officers. We talked all the time about mental health as a driver of operational demand – we talked about it


Nick O’Time By Colin Whittock


"It feels like the most extraordinary privilege. I had always defined my ability to help people in an operational context."


out there all the time but I had never heard anyone talk about it in here. It wasn’t that people didn’t care; it was just that people didn’t know.


Up to really the day I broke, the day I ended up in hospital, I was still ignorant and still in denial about it. I was aware of all these things going on but didn’t see them as signs and symptoms that anything was wrong. I just saw them as a set of circumstances that represented a challenge in life to be overcome. My body, brain and behaviour were all trying to tell me something but I was too busy to listen because there was a life to be lived and family to provide for and a job to be done. So I kept going until I couldn’t go anymore.


How did colleagues and the job react to you when they knew you had a mental health illness?


Only one of my colleagues, a good friend, had noticed and said something to me. I genuinely had no idea that anything was wrong, so I was quite sincerely able to reassure him that everything was alright.


I often say there are probably four reasons why I didn’t get the help I needed. First off is a simple fact that I’m a bloke and, while any of us can be affected by mental ill-health, men in particular find it difficult to talk, particularly about stuff that carries with it the appearance of fragility or vulnerability. Secondly, the simple fact of being a police officer. Often, we become so caught up with the endless demand that is out there, the endless queue of people


who need our help, that we forget to help ourselves. Thirdly, being a boss. I thought it was my job to check that everybody else was OK. I invested a huge amount of my own emotional and psychological energy in looking after the people around me, and I became so preoccupied with that, I forgot to look after me. More than any of those three things, it was a simple matter of ignorance – a simple lack of awareness. I had both the personal and professional experience of it but somehow, when it came to me, it was this complete blind spot right up to and including the day I ended up in hospital. I was still in denial about the fact I was ill and I was still ignorant of the fact that I was in desperate need of a helping hand. I just thought I needed to get a grip of myself and carry on.


You have written two books and they will have struck a chord with those reading them. Would you ever have dreamt that you would be a best-selling author?


It feels like the most extraordinary privilege. I had always defined my ability to help people in an operational context. But I got to the point where I wasn’t able to do that anymore – psychologically, emotionally, physically – as much as I would love to be able to. In writing and talking, I have found that perhaps there are other ways to be able to help people. It is extraordinary when people say to me they have read my book and it’s even more extraordinary to me when they say they found it really helpful. I started writing the first book as a form of therapy – it was part of the mending process for me. The thought that it has been good for anyone else still slightly takes my breath away.


With what has happened globally over the last almost two years and the impact on policing, our colleagues are battered and bruised. The demand is never ending, as is the vilification through the media. The mental health crisis that is within policing at the moment is significant.


07 I POLICE I DECEMBER 2021


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