The weakness of some police officers’ memoirs (I assert boldly having done no more than skim-read a couple) is to recount the awful and amazing things that happened in one continuous sequence, like a car chase with the sirens whirring, without pausing for reflection.
No criticism is intended if, after all, police officers resemble on the written page exactly who we expect them to be on the job and in court, before a jury, unemotionally bearing witness to events. Yet police work exerts such extraordinary demands on its officers that the reader is poorly served by a ‘cops and robbers’ account which fails to engage with what those demands do to a person who is possessed of mere ordinary strength, courage and sanity.
By this measure, John Sutherland’s memoir ‘Blue` is a triumph. It is about his struggle to ‘keep the peace [while] falling to pieces.’ Sutherland moved through the Metropolitan Police’s ranks quickly over his 25-year career but would not have achieved any degree of fame before the book were it not for his role as a hostage negotiator in Markham Square, Chelsea, in 2008. That episode ended with police snipers killing a shotgun-wielding 32 year-old barrister named Mark Saunders. Sutherland apologetically declines to write about that tragedy in the book, citing the grief it would cause to Saunders’s family and friends (it is unclear what details Sutherland is concerned about adding to those given at the inquest). From the chapters that follow, the reader is led to understand that Markham Square lit the fuse in Sutherland’s mind to the personal crisis that would prematurely end his career in front-line policing.
While the trajectory of ‘Blue’ moves inexorably toward Sutherland’s breakdown, foreshadowed at the book’s beginning, it remains foremost a fine illustration of the unusually varied demands placed on police officers. In the wake of a stabbing, a young Sutherland attends not only the crime scene but follows the victim to hospital and watches surgeons try and fail to save her life. The reason? Sutherland has to ensure that if the stabbing becomes a murder investigation, there is consistent continuity of evidence and vital items such as clothing can be gathered. Officers have to maintain a sort of dissonance between their job and their common humanity, hoping that the victim will pull through, while diligently performing their duties as if she will not.
Sutherland is called to the scene of countless corpses. I won’t quote his pithy description of one such visit. Suffice to say that in the grisliness stakes unnatural deaths compete fiercely with natural deaths after decomposition.
It is striking how often police work starts when social work ends or has failed. It falls to Sutherland to extract a child from her mother’s home pursuant to a court order. The mental ill-health of many of those Sutherland encounters, from knife-wielding thugs to suicide risks, is obvious and no less tragic for its obviousness.
There is levity also, such as having to deal with the uncomfortable aftermath of a vasectomy while policing an Arsenal match. It is only after Markham Square that Sutherland loses sight of how rewarding policing can be. He well captures the thrill of immediately and visibly making a positive difference and, when the stars occasionally align, making a long-term impact as well.
‘Blue’ has shortcomings. Sutherland applies his fine and nuanced judgment to issues like stop and search and community policing. But sometimes he fails to elaborate on a problem that deserves more than the vague mention he gives it, notably police corruption. I was also disappointed by there being no treatment of his experience of giving evidence in court and being cross-examined. One passage about a kidnap case finishes simply by noting that it prompted his first appearance in the witness box at the Old Bailey, without adding any further description.
‘Blue’ has been reviewed widely and favourably and its success may herald a ‘genre’ with weaker entrants following – and eventually perhaps a stronger one. Alistair Livingstone’s ‘Broken Blue Line` published this month appears to be another memoir that dovetails high-octane policing with an account of mental breakdown, confession to which would have broken the taboos of a few years ago. Sutherland also has a second book out this year. Both should be commended for shedding light on a world that is too often either sensationalised or ignored.
Tom Beardsworth 