Dyson Family of Worcestershire
© Jeff Dyson - November 2006
I then worked at Gatwick Airport as Detective Inspector for a 12 month period. This was a very different form of policing, being solely a financial environment. It proved difficult at times when a financial decision over-ruled an investigation. When enquiries into a crime caused the delay of an aircraft, its crew and some 400 passengers, then it took off, taking your evidence with it. This proved a difficult concept for some staff.
After my spells in CID I returned to uniform duties at East Grinstead, and after a while when I was looking forward to an easy existence I was again posted back to Gatwick this time in uniform, working the three shift system for the first time since 1965. I can tell you this became hard work.
As Inspector you are often the Senior Officer on duty at the Airport responsible for a staff of over 40 officers many of whom are of course armed. You are policing for a threat or accident that you hope may never happen. The problem is that you have to have the staff to cover such an emergency, but to keep them motivated all the time proves difficult. There is only so much training and practice incidents you can run.
As Inspector you are often the Senior Officer on duty at the Airport responsible for a staff of over 40 officers many of whom are of course armed. You are policing for a threat or accident that you hope may never happen. The problem is that you have to have the staff to cover such an emergency, but to keep them motivated all the time proves difficult. There is only so much training and practice incidents you can run.
My most troublesome event was abandoned baggage. It was the Duty Inspector who had to make the decision as whether that bag posed a substantial threat and there was a need to isolate it and call in the bomb squad for a ‘controlled explosion.’ To assist in this decision we had a portable x-ray machine, which at best produced a very poor image. It was normally a ‘gut feeling’. Many a time I took the decision to open the bag and check the contents rather than close down the terminal while the bomb squad came down from Uxbridge!. There was one occasion however when I could not take the chance, a beer barrel had been abandoned in the short term multi-storey car park adjacent to the main arrivals concourse. This being a favoured form of explosive of the IRA we had to call the bomb squad. This completely closed the airport for all arrivals and departures for about two hours. Chaos was caused with traffic backed up on the M23 to the M25. In the event it was just an abandoned empty left over from a party!
Flying is not dangerous, its just the landing and taking off that is. A landing is described as a ‘controlled crash’. Even when I worked at Gatwick we believed we were living on borrowed time, the last air accident being in about 1968 when a cargo flight ‘landed’ about one mile short of the runway. As part of my duties I was responsible for the continued appraisal and upgrading of the major incident planning and training, which resulted in regular simulated training events involving all the emergency services and airport staff.
Flying is not dangerous, its just the landing and taking off that is. A landing is described as a ‘controlled crash’. Even when I worked at Gatwick we believed we were living on borrowed time, the last air accident being in about 1968 when a cargo flight ‘landed’ about one mile short of the runway. As part of my duties I was responsible for the continued appraisal and upgrading of the major incident planning and training, which resulted in regular simulated training events involving all the emergency services and airport staff.