Top cop Billy bows out after 30 years in the force

Facing down gang members, apprehending drug barons and interrogating murderers have been meat and drink to Billy Scott for the past 30 years.

But the detective chief inspector at Telford's Malinsgate police station admits he will probably shed a tear when he clocks off for the last time next month.

Billy will retire on September 17 - 30 years to the day since he joined the force as a nervous 19-year-old. And he plans to go out with a bang, putting himself for the overnight shift on his last day of the job.

"Some people count the days to their retirement, but it's not been like that for me," he says. "I've loved it.

"I've met so many great people and made so many good friends," he says, adding that even some of the villains will say hello to him if they see him in the street.

There have been plenty of ups, like the 12 commendations he has received during his time in the force, a few downs – such as the time he drove his patrol car into somebody's garden wall as a young Pc ­– and some harrowing moments too. But there was never any question about what he wanted to do with his life as a youngster.

"My family said I had wanted to join the police ever since I was about seven or eight years old," says Billy, now 49.

"I was a Telford lad, I grew up in Woodside. It had a reputation as being a bit of a rough estate, but I had a great childhood.

"We were lucky in that we had very good neighbours, and we used to play out in the street all the time."

And he says it was the perfect grounding for his career in the force, meaning he could easily identify people from all backgrounds.

Like most youngsters growing up in the 70s and 80s, he watched the police dramas of the time. And he says while real-life crime-fighting rarely fits the neat storylines depicted on the small screen, the job was everything he expected it to be.

Training at the Cwmbran police college in south Wales was a wake-up call for the teenage Billy.

"It was very militaristic in those days, and it came as a bit of a shock having to do your own ironing and things like that," he says.

"There were quite a few people on the course who had been in the Army, so to begin with I would ask them to help me in exchange for a couple of pints until I learned to do it."

And he says maintaining a smart appearance was considered very important then.

"If you went on the parade square at 9am, and you didn't look as you should, you would have to go back at 10 at night.

"It was very much the army style, but it was good as it meant I quickly had to grow up."

He remembers a feeling of great pride when he put his uniform on for the first time, although new recruits were expected to provide their own boots which provided a bit of mirth.

"The ones I had were like winkle-pickers with zips up the side, and they all started calling me Cliff Richard," he says. "I had to change them for something more sensible."

His first seven years were spent in Kidderminster, living in a police house behind the station with three or four other officers.

His first day on patrol saw him paired up with an experienced officer, and he was called to arrest a shoplifter in Woolworths.

"I was so nervous, having to read out the caution," he says. "You do it in training, but having to remember it all when you're doing it for real was quite daunting."

Another hairy moment came when Kidderminster Harriers hosted West Ham, at the time notorious for their Inter-City Firm hooligan gang, in the FA Cup.

Training

"There were about 30 West Ham fans who decided they were going to storm the pub and smash all the windows," he says. "I had to try to keep control until support arrived.

"I also remember seeing a body for the first time, it was somebody who had ended up in the River Severn at Stourport.

"It was a strange feeling, quite nerve racking, but the training helps you deal with it."

He quickly got to know the 'faces' in the town, and learned that if you heard a loud crash the roof of the Woolworths was a great vantage point.

And it was his local knowledge and gut instinct which earned Billy his first commendation eight months into the job.

"There was this aggravated burglary just up the road, two people had attacked this old bloke, and broke his leg in two places," he says.

"Shortly after I saw people come out of a pub. They didn't look like locals, there was something about them, they had both been on something, so I did a stop-and-search, and they had the credit cards from the old boy in their pockets."

He moved back to his home town in 1996, first as a Pc based at Madeley Police Station, joining CID the following year.

"By this time I knew I was a thief taker rather than a traffic officer," he says.

Promotion to sergeant followed in 2003, first as a uniformed officer, then as a detective, and he reached the rank of detective inspector in 2010, and finally becoming Telford's DCI last year.

The hardest case he had to deal with was the 2001 murder of 18-month-old Abigail Edwards by her mother's boyfriend, Simon Shepherd, in the Sutton Hill area of Telford.

"Abigail was the same age as my own daughter, but you have to be able to compartmentalise things and switch off any feelings you may have yourself.

"I had to interview Simon Shepherd. I saw Abigail's bruised body, and then I went home to see my own daughter in her little tiny cot.

"People who commit crimes like that are like standard people. When you are interviewing them, you can't show any emotion, you can't let your feeling show. I think if I had been a bit younger, with a bit less experience, I would have found it very difficult."

Another tough case was the 2007 murder of Neil Williams as part of a string of violent robberies across the West Midlands.

Mr Williams, 41, had been walking home from a night out when he was attacked in a park in Churncote, near Stirchley.

Billy was part of Operation Mafia, a six-month joint operation with West Midlands Police, which eventually saw illegal immigrants Gabriel Bhengu and Jabu Mbowane, living in Wolverhampton at the time, jailed for life for the murder of Mr Williams and Dudley father-of-five Andrew Owen. The pair, along with Bhengu's girlfriend Kashia Allen, who acted as a getaway driver, were responsible for a total of seven robberies across the region.

A lighter moment came one winter when the custody block at Telford police station was being refurbished, and the area was gripped by heavy snow.

"When we had bad weather, Furrows Ford used to provide us with Ford Mavericks, because our normal patrol cars couldn't manage in the snow," he says.

"There was always a bit of a clamour for the Mavericks, so when I saw one in the car park with the keys left in it, I grabbed the keys and put my folder in the back.

"I was out all day in this car, driving about 80 miles, but when I got back to the nick there was one of the builders working on the custody block in reception about to report his car stolen.

"He saw me come back, and said 'that's my car!', and sure enough, his tools were all in the back.

"He was as good as gold, he saw the funny side, and we compensated him for his petrol."

Another mishap with a motor vehicle came when as a young Pc in Kidderminster, he was called out to a school where the alarm had been activated.

Rewarding

"On my way there, I smashed into somebody's garden wall," he says.

"I had to sit there with the car balanced on the smashed up wall. We had to pay the owner of the house for the damage. My sergeant wasn't best pleased."

He says one of the most rewarding aspects of the job has been seeing people who have been able to turn their lives around after being in trouble with the law.

"There was this one chap, he got himself off the drugs and sorted himself out, and he came over to me and shook my hand," he says.

"If he didn't like me, or wasn't grateful, he wouldn't have done that, would he?

"It's all about how you treat people. If you treat them right, I think most criminals will be all right with you and will realise it's nothing personal.

"I think I'm an approachable person, and I think I'm able to relate to people."

There is also a darker side to some criminals, though, and Billy says his work tackling organised crime has inevitably led to some menacing threats from gang members.

He is positive about the future of policing, and says while there have been changes over the past three decades, the basic principles of protecting the public remain the same.

"There have been greater pressures over the past few years with the cuts," he says. "I don't think the work we do has changed that much, its just officers now have a bigger case-load because there aren't as many of them.

"But I think the new Prime Minister has recognised this and is doing something to address it."

While Billy will be sad to leave the force, he is looking forward to running a pub with wife Tracy. He is father to daughter Lucy, now 19, and twin sons Eddie and George, 17, and he says Eddie is keen to follow in his father's footsteps and join the police.

"I have no problem with that at all, it is really rewarding being able to protect the public and keep them safe," he says.