My instant reaction was to put both hands up in front of my face. I closed my eyes. I didn’t immediately feel the pain. That came once I’d seen the blood. I fell to the floor, thick red covering my hands like gloves.
I was aware of Jim jumping over my head and tackling the man, throwing him to the ground in that good old judo way of his.
Two women came out of a room, huddled together, crying. One of them grabbed the knifeman’s leg and bent it up as he and Jim lay in a bundle on the floor. I fought through the jumble of arms and legs and scrabbled for the knives.
Brian Petch was rabid, like a wild man, with a guttural screaming that seemed to come from his belly. He had super strength and it took everything Jim and I plus the two ladies had to keep hold of him. I can’t remember which one of us called for urgent assistance but someone did. It seemed to take an age for anyone to arrive but then I remembered – the lifts weren’t working.
When the cavalry did come, they came in droves. When the call goes out that an officer has been injured, everyone comes, from your district and beyond. Adrenalised comradeship, an innate desire to be there, to give assistance, to protect, and to apprehend. And indignation that a man is down.
Despite at least a dozen uniformed police officers and the two night-duty detectives, Petch still tried to make a run for it. He hadn’t bargained on meeting the dog handler on the stairs.
Joey the police dog took a tasty bite of upper thigh for his supper. It meant a lot of work and report writing for his handler, but Joey was given extra biscuits and plenty of pats on the back for making the arrest.
I was lucky to escape with injuries to my hands only. I was patched up with stitches and bandages and went back to the station. The impact didn’t hit me until I sat nursing a cup of hot sugary tea. It had happened so fast. The shock was as much about what could have happened as what actually did – how he could have stabbed me, how it might have ended – and the thoughts bounced around my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and sat there shaking.
Petch was a drug addict who’d just been released from Pentonville prison. He hadn’t had any drugs for months but had taken something that night which had had a strong effect on him. He’d turned up at the flat of the guy he’d been sharing a cell with, looking for a bed because his pal had promised he could get one there. He found the man’s wife with a woman, her lover, and went berserk, even though it was nothing to do with him.
Petch was charged with GBH with intent to endanger life. It was before the days of the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) and the case files had to go off to a department somewhere centrally for them to arrange representation by the force’s legal branch. It used to be the police decision on prosecutions, guided by legal experts they employed, whereas the CPS are now independent. Is it better? Probably. It takes the onus away from the police and they can concentrate on investigating and not prosecuting, purely gathering the best evidence they can. For reasons I will never understand, perhaps saving costs or some other initiative of the time, the case was dropped from GBH to common assault. Common assaults in those days weren’t prosecuted in the magistrates’ court but referred to civil remedies which meant making a personal case at the civil court, a private prosecution between the two parties, rather than a public one paid for by the state.
We appealed but lost our fight.
To go out onto the streets to protect the public, to be stabbed by a raving knife-wielding maniac, only to be told it didn’t really matter, that it was just a common assault, was a kick in the gut for all proactive police officers. My physical scars healed but I felt very let down.
An independent barrister read of the case in the Police Review magazine. He contacted me and asked if he could take my case on as a private prosecution because he felt strongly about this miscarriage of justice. He had successfully dealt with similar incidents involving police officers over the past year and he was happy to fund it through his firm, pro-bono.
I agreed.
The Metropolitan Police couldn’t be seen to endorse this course of action, but every officer involved in the case backed me and agreed to be present at the hearing, as did the civilian witnesses, including the doctor who had treated me. I was anxious but positive.
Due to a certain amount of legal wrangling it took over a year for a final court date to be set. Exactly a week before the hearing was due to start, I received a phone call at home from Surrey Police. There had been an accident on the M23. Brian Petch was the front-seat passenger in a car being driven by another well-known criminal who was high on drugs. Petch had been decapitated.
There was more.
‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ said the traffic officer. ‘You’d better get yourself tested. Did you know he had AIDS?’
I enjoyed my time in the East End and it was a great place for a policing apprenticeship. I had worked in uniform, done a six-month home-beat posting, worked in plain clothes and had a stint on a murder team, but it was time to move on.
When I first applied for an undercover posting, the interview panel was made up of a detective chief superintendent and a detective inspector. I was overawed and stuttered over my words as I tried to tell them about my aptitude for detective work. I told them how I’d single-handedly arrested a robber armed with a knife and about being stabbed. I mentioned the times I’d given evidence in Crown Court and how I’d dealt with copious dead bodies.
They asked questions I was able to answer both in theory and with practical examples. I don’t know if I impressed them or not. It didn’t work like that.
When I didn’t get the posting my sergeant said, ‘Never mind, Ash. You can always try again.’
I vowed I would, and in the meantime, I planned to work harder than ever, even if it did mean looking for other opportunities.
When the call came out for officers to go to central London, which covered the West End, I put myself forward. I was ambitious and loved a challenge. My ultimate goal was to work undercover, so as much experience as I could get would be invaluable.
I was twenty-three and the people I’d worked with during the previous four years were like a family. I’d moved from the section house accommodation above the police station and was now living in a flat further east, but still in the heart of a wonderful community.
I was sad to say goodbye but it turned out to be one of the best career moves I made.
Policing the West End is very different to policing the East End. You still deal with crime and life and death and the public, but the West End is full of tourists, people looking for entertainment and bright lights, as well as the people who live and work there.
I hadn’t realised how many gaps I had in my education until I entered the Collator’s office in my new nick. (These days the Collator is better known as the LIO, or Local Intelligence Officer.) I stared at the various mug shots labelled Van-Draggers, Clip Joints, Dippers, Rent Boys. Where were the TDA merchants (taking-and-driving-away – also known as twockers – taking without owner’s consent), the robbers, the burglars?
It was enlightening to learn about these new-to-me crimes. Most of our suspects in the West End lived ‘off the ground’ rather than on it. They’d come and do their dirty business on our patch then wander off again, so we had a sea of transient faces to get to know and it was hard graft.
It wasn’t long before I learned about a crime unique to areas