The classic 1950s image of the British bobby is that, portrayed in Dixon of Dock Green, of a portly, ruddy-faced, cheery fellow who helps the elderly across the road and clips the ears of miscreant children. Not many postcards depict the other side. Not many souvenirs show elite muscle-bound police marksmen bursting from unmarked cars and shooting gunmen dead in a rapid fire-fight.
I’m glad UK police officers aren’t routinely armed. It would change the dynamic of British policing forever and would drive a wedge between the service and the communities. The small but highly mobile and flexible Tactical Firearms Unit is charged with bringing the most critically dangerous situations to a safe conclusion. That is all we need in my opinion.
It’s worth noting that in 2013–14 there were around 125,000 police officers in the UK yet only approximately 6,000 of those were authorized to carry guns. Furthermore, shots were discharged by police in only two of the 14,864 firearms operations that year. In contrast, according to the Brazilian Forum for Public Safety, between 2009 and 2013 that country’s police killed 11,197 people. That, to me, demonstrates the status quo is more than satisfactory for the time being.
In 2009 I’d risen to what, in my eyes, was the dream job. I was Brighton and Hove’s top cop. Its Divisional Commander, the Chief Superintendent of Police.
It had not been an easy climb and neither should it have been. Running the policing of a city as diverse and complex as this required experience, tenacity, patience and grit. I had been a police officer for twenty-six years serving at every rank in Brighton and Hove. I drew on every moment of that to equip me for this privilege. Crucially I had spent eighteen months as the Deputy Divisional Commander and a year as a Detective Superintendent.
The pressure was relentless but during my four-year tenure I relied on a brilliant team of senior colleagues and an exceptionally brave and dedicated 650-strong army of men and women who risked life and limb for the safety of others.
A photograph of my inspiration, my dad, resplendent in his Special Constabulary uniform, stood adjacent to my computer screen, watching my every move with his enigmatic smile softening his chiselled features. During my toughest and loneliest moments of command I would hear him silently implore, ‘Come on, Graham. Pull yourself together. People are relying on you and you have a duty to get through this.’
Beside Dad were pictures of Julie and the children, by now eleven and growing into charming, intelligent and loving kids. It’s a cliché but they were my rock, my raison d’être. The four of them kept me grounded, reminding me that there was a life outside the job and that was very important. Julie always showed unerring support for me. The fact that, despite my overwhelming workload, I tried to make time for all of the children’s special events meant that unlike some of my colleagues I managed to remain central to the lives of my family. This created a bond from which, now they are grown up, Julie and I still reap the benefits.
Two years on, the policing challenges in February 2011 were as routine as they ever got. Although the city was enjoying a drop in the number of house burglaries, people were having their phones and wallets stolen at a greater rate than before and our neighbourhood policing teams were getting to grips with that.
However, we soon became worried about a spate of armed robberies of small post offices happening in Hove and just north in nearby Burgess Hill. All the descriptions of the perpetrator were very similar. Thankfully no-one had been hurt but there had been seven in all and they showed no sign of abating.
A few years previously, I witnessed the life-changing effect that being caught up in two armed robberies in a couple of weeks had on a colleague’s wife. Her breakdown and inability to return to work underlined to me the heartless disregard robbers have for their victims. They just see them as an irritating barrier between their greed and the loot.
This run of crimes was certainly unusual enough to capture the attention of the public, the police and those who feared they might become victims. They are rarer now than in years gone by as the risks of being caught have escalated in direct proportion to the advances in technology and forensics.
Those who still choose to put themselves in jeopardy by committing this old-fashioned crime tend to be desperate, drug-addicted and living on the margins of society. Over the years, armed robbery had become less of a way of life, more a desperate last-ditch attempt for survival.
Burgess Hill is one of the many commuter towns that have sprung up in the last 150 years alongside the main London to Brighton railway line. It’s a popular place to live for those working in the capital or Brighton, which is ten miles away, but who are either disinclined or financially restricted from settling in either.
On a dark Tuesday evening during the frantic run-up to Christmas, a local convenience store close to Wivelsfield railway station, on the outskirts of the town, was crammed with commuters and residents making use of its small sub post office to send last-minute parcels and cards to loved ones.
Out of the blue, in burst a man wearing a beige stocking over his face. Pulling a small handgun from his pocket he bellowed at horror-stricken staff, demanding cash. Pushing one person to the ground, he grabbed the money that a terrified colleague threw at him. Gathering it up, he scurried out, sprinted past the railway station, through a small housing estate and disappeared into the patchwork of fields that lay beyond.
He netted in excess of a thousand pounds and, while no shots were fired, staff and customers were severely traumatized by the ordeal. Thankfully, because of astute and alert witnesses, a very precise picture of the man started to emerge which would be critical in the weeks to come.
Frustratingly, while this description provided a valuable tool to eliminate possible suspects, no amount of investigation or publicity threw up his name. Detectives worked tirelessly to shed light on who this robber was before he struck again.
Following a lull over the Christmas and New Year period there were two further attacks, both in the centre of Burgess Hill and both in areas and premises swamped with CCTV. This was the sign of a desperate man becoming even more reckless – a recipe for disaster.
The first, late one Friday afternoon at a bank close to Burgess Hill’s main railway station, yielded nothing. The man burst in disguised this time in dark clothing, a scarf around his face and wearing a black beanie hat, waving his gun around. He stood inches from the counter staff, yelling his demand for cash to terrify them into submission.
Despite his brazenness, the staff had been trained well. The moment his intentions became clear, in a reflex response, they flung themselves to the floor and triggered the metal shield that created an impenetrable barrier between the cashiers and the public area. Bewildered, he was not quite quick enough to react to the security shutter as it flew up. He was just too slow in pulling his hand away before the razor-sharp steel clipped it as it engaged. The DNA yielded by that fleeting graze was the breakthrough that the detectives were waiting for. While the robberies happened in another town, I was putting huge pressure on my investigators to speed up the forensic results and get the man off the streets. However, even with me breathing down their necks, the answer did not come quickly enough.
The following Monday, again just before closing time, the Burgess Hill main post office became his next target. Dressed in identical clothing he again threatened staff and customers with his black handgun, shouting his demands. This time he was luckier and a few hundred pounds were handed over by the petrified postal workers. He fled as quickly as he’d arrived and, despite the area being flooded with cops, he vanished.
Finally, the DNA result came back. We learned that, with a likelihood of one billion to one, our man was Michael Fitzpatrick, a forty-nine-year-old career criminal whose graduation to armed robbery had been typical if not predictable. Out on licence from prison, Fitzpatrick had a string of previous convictions ranging back through his adult life. It started with minor theft, drugs, a bit of violence that escalated to armed robbery and conspiracy to murder. But nothing as brazen and desperate as this. It was from these arrests that we had his DNA. A further arrest would almost certainly mean an immediate recall to prison. Unfortunately, as in the fictional Darren Spicer’s case, that is inevitable for far too many habitual offenders.
Looking for such dangerous people is more complex than TV dramas would have you believe. It’s not sexy, it’s not always exciting, but it is ruthlessly efficient. Gone are the days whereby a maverick DI would meet a snout in the pub, walk round the corner, kick a door in and get his man – if those days ever existed at all.
The key to any police investigation is information. Without this the police are impotent. The hunt today is fuelled by the investigative detectives who focus on building the evidence and the intelligence officers whose sources can be more nebulous. Both work together in a quest to predict the target’s next steps. ‘Brains’ beavering away in darkened rooms pull together the information to guide commanders and operatives alike, advising them where their suspect is likely to be, when, with whom and the danger he – or she – poses. There is no scientific formula but professional judgement is key.
Manhunts where the quarry could be armed are even more complex. The intelligence gathering is similar but the arrest phase must take place with trained and accredited firearms officers and commanders literally calling the shots. I often ran operations such as these and would ultimately be the one accountable for the outcome. However, each and every officer below me would be responsible for their own actions, including firing their gun. A commander could never instruct anyone to shoot, other than in truly exceptional circumstances. That was always down to the officer concerned.
Not Dead Yet gives a taste of how manhunts happen. The close protection operation of Gaia Lafayette and the hunt for her stalker were driven by Grace with separate but interdependent structures in place to allow the whole complex plan to come together.
The planning of the police response is faultlessly described and takes place in the office of the Gold commander, Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington. Observant readers will have worked out the similarity of the name to mine. The office described is exactly as my office looked, down to the reference to the sweet messages penned by Barrington’s triplets on the huge whiteboard. My alter-ego’s physical description, however, is all too flattering. I am not athletic and fair-haired and I have only ever run one marathon.
I was not directly running the search for Fitzpatrick. As the Divisional Commander, however, I knew that the outcome of this operation would be mine to manage. I was the public face of policing and would come under huge pressure if we had another robbery or worse. That said, I knew all of those who were involved and my trust in them was absolute. Despite them being the best around, though, however good the plan, however good the team, as Grace says, ‘with guns around sometimes people get hurt and that’s when all hell breaks loose.’ This gave rise to a number of sleepless nights over the years.
As with the fictional Chief Superintendent, during the hunt for Fitzpatrick the Gold commander was weighing up all the intelligence, possible sightings and suggestions for places to raid, and making the final call. It was the paucity of information that I found most exhilarating when in command. It is easy to decide to act when there is certainty. However, when the best you have is probability, alongside crazy time and staff constraints, all your synapses go into overdrive drawing on all your professional experience and judgement before giving the green light. In the ‘squeaky bum moments’ that follow, you hope beyond hope you have it right. It’s one of the greatest buzzes of senior command; Grace experiences it in every book and, like me, he thrives on it.
That February morning, as on every day since Fitzpatrick had been identified, there had been a dedicated intelligence cell working to locate him. The team that would carry out the arrest was the crack Tactical Firearms Unit.
Officers were aware our man knew that police were looking for him, and that he was probably still in the area. His desperation was likely to be extreme as this could not end well for him.
Out of the blue, intelligence came in that at lunchtime he would be going to the Sidewinder pub in the Kemp Town area of Brighton. One of the worst places possible to try to arrest an armed suspect is in a pub. The presence of the suspect and other members of the public, whose sobriety and compliance could not be relied upon, together with the availability of ad hoc weapons such as glasses and furniture, render armed raids on pubs suitable only for the direst emergencies.
Therefore the default tactic is to sit and wait. Try to take the suspect outside by surprise with such an overwhelming show of force that resistance becomes futile. Such arrests are, in the vast majority of cases, resolved swiftly, if not quietly. Such was the intention that day.
Just after 1 p.m., an unmarked car containing covert armed officers was crawling around the area hoping to spot Fitzpatrick, hopefully somewhere they could safely overwhelm him, arrest him and neutralize any threat he might pose.
Rock Place runs between the vibrant centre of Kemp Town, the famous gay village, and the seafront. This area is always throbbing with people and traffic. Rock Place, however, seems out of place. It feels like a homely backstreet with a few shops, a pub, a garage and a music school. It’s impossible for two cars to pass along its short length.
The police car inched its way towards the bottom of the street when suddenly Fitzpatrick appeared on foot in front of them. Their heart rates accelerating into overdrive, they eased their BMW to a gentle halt and did what they were trained to do.
The doors flew open and, using the car as cover, they burst out and shouted their challenge at Fitzpatrick.
‘Stop, armed police!’ Their guns aimed directly at him.
Unlike thousands of suspects before, this one hadn’t read the script. Crazily he pulled his own pistol out of nowhere and pointed it straight at the officers.
In a split second they had to weigh up the threat. Real gun or not? Threat or no threat? Shoot or don’t shoot? As mentioned previously, only a snap decision is possible.
Believing their lives were in imminent danger they fired three shots at Fitzpatrick. Two slammed into him, devastatingly rupturing his internal organs. He crashed to the ground. The gun flew out of his hand. The officers then did something many would consider bizarre but goes to the core of being a cop. They rushed in and, as Grace did with Carl Venner, tried to save the life of their would-be killer.
Having battled to stem his bleeding, they soon handed over to the paramedics who spent a further thirty agonizing minutes trying to get him breathing before rushing him to the nearby Royal Sussex County Hospital. Once there, a team of twenty-five doctors and nurses combined their skills in attempting to save him before he was finally pronounced dead. In all, police and medics struggled for an hour and forty-five minutes from the moment he pulled a gun on armed officers before they accepted defeat. Their determination to preserve human life was in stark contrast to his contempt for theirs.
I will never forget the mid-afternoon text from my deputy and good friend Superintendent Steve Whitton. ‘We found Fitzpatrick. We’ve shot him and it’s not looking good.’ Brief and to the point.
It took my breath away. The Divisional Commander for West Sussex, Steve Voice, had recently overseen the aftermath of a fatal police shooting in the village of Fernhurst on the Sussex–Hampshire border. From his experience, he penned a guide to our role following such an event. It became my bible.
Managing the impact on officers and the community was a commitment that continued from the moment of the shooting right through and beyond the inquest. Initially, issuing any public statement was the domain of the Independent Police Complaints Commission who rightly investigate when people are killed at the hands of the police.
It was imperative that we were able to include something in those initial press releases to indicate that the man who had been shot was armed and dangerous and that the police had been threatened. The diplomacy of Steve Whitton in getting two small but significant references into the media statement – that the dead man was wanted for armed robberies and that a non-police-issue gun was found near his body – had the effect of practically eliminating any ideas that trigger-happy cops were cruising the streets of Brighton shooting at will, which may otherwise have prevailed.
At the subsequent inquest, it was established that the gun was an airgun. This only become apparent after the gun was closely examined. The armed officers had no chance of knowing this when it was aimed at them. It was also revealed that Fitzpatrick had told a friend he’d rather be dead than go back to prison. The jury returned a lawful killing verdict, and noted that Fitzpatrick had probably died within two minutes of being shot. They found, too, that the officers had been forced to make that split-second decision to protect the lives of the public and themselves. Their conduct was described as exemplary.
Lots of public meetings, briefings to elected and executive officials and MPs, painstaking preparations for the inquest and IPCC report and convening Independent Advisory Groups became a huge part of my job. Apart from a couple of examples of injudicious statements in the media, the impact of this tragedy on the life of Brighton and Hove was minimal.
It’s not always that way. The press can take delight in writing thousands of words and many column inches dissecting a decision that an individual cop has had milliseconds to make. Anyone can be wise in hindsight; my former colleagues rarely have that luxury.