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Old guard cops made me think of Challenor
• IT was a nice cosy 1960s old guard Bow Street Cops get together (Old guard reunited for a drink and memories, Mar 15).
My memories of vintage West End coppering have always been rather clouded by Detective Sergeant Harold Challenor.
Over at Saville Row cop shop he wasn’t “preventing crime by waiting for it to happen” he was committing crime and thus making sure that it jolly well did happen.
Fortunately he finally got caught out but definitely not by his fellow officers and ended up in the looney bin.
Having had years to reflect on all his many misdemeanours he wrote a book entitled Tanky Challenor: SAS and the MET (1990).
Page 154 includes the following gem: “A detective can’t pick and choose his cases – there was one occasion after I had helped break a very vicious ring that I visited them in the cells after they’d been given hefty sentences. “I told them that if they ever returned to the West End I would kill them and then assist in the investigation which would establish why they were the victims of gang warfare”.
According to Bow Street’s old timers “the public get the police force they deserve”. Oh really!
IAN CAMERN
Studley Road, SW4
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