A Bobby's Job

Bill Hannis spent thirty years as a career policeman, starting in the early 1960s in the Warwickshire Constabulary. He walked the beat at a time when the only way to call assistance was to blow a whistle or ask a member of the public to dial 999. When his career finished he was a Detective Chief Superintendent in the West Midlands Police and at the forefront of technological support to crime investigation. He was also the Head of the Project Team for the establishment of the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and a major player in the introduction of the first automatic fingerprint retrieval system in the United Kingdom.



This is not a total account of his thirty years in the job: it is more a collection of inci-dents - some funny, some tragic, some stupid and others exciting and danger-ous.