Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2010 | Page 27

INTERVIEW

February/March 2010

life

Photo: Bob receiving one of numerous commendations this one by Chief Constable Graham Moore.

marching out on the streets of Huddersfield in

that pub, they don’t like police!’ “Well, it

his too-tight helmet and collar which rubbed.

was like a red rag to a bull! If you don’t nip

Bob’s own marriage broke down after a few

behaviour in the bud it just goes on.”

years. “It’s very hard to be a policeman’s wife if

Pleased to cast off the uniform again, he

you’re not in the Force yourself,” says Carol.

became a detective working on the infamous

His determination and fearlessness led to

Sarah Harper murder, the little girl who went

promotion, and Bob became a detective in

to buy a loaf of bread and never came back.

Huddersfield. He soon learnt that catching

Equally chilling were the Boarded Barn murders

criminals had an element of luck – or

in Cheshire, where an ill-conceived attempt at

otherwise. “Me and a colleague were watching

kidnap and extortion led to the utterly callous

a timber yard which had had been subject to

murders of two young mothers. The team was

arson attacks. We were there seven nights.

commended for solving the crime, and Bob

On the eighth, a girl called Helen Rytka was

was promoted. As Detective Inspector he was

murdered just yards from where we’d been sat:

given the Denis Hoban Trophy for outstanding

a victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.” He pauses.

detective work. Bob mentions this and his

“Just one more night and he’d have been well

other commendations not with any arrogance

and truly caught.”

but with an air of gratitude that his efforts

The Ripper case, then in its latter stages, was

have been noted. It is Carol who points out

just one of very many high profile murders

that most officers don’t get anything like the

that Bob would see over the years, and it is a

20 certificates of commendation that Bob has

prime example of the way a case takes over

accumulated over the years.

the lives of those dealing with it. “There was

Bob became Detective Chief Inspector and

so much criticism over the case – that Sutcliffe

held the post for seven years. He spent three

[eventually convicted] was questioned but let

and half years at Wakefield Detective School

go several times – it destroyed the lives of

training future senior detectives; he became a

those in charge.”

hostage negotiator, and trained others in the

But being ‘the man in charge’ was something
he aspired to. As a uniformed sergeant in
Calder Valley he was told : ‘We don’t go into
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art, and in suicide intervention: “Fortunately,
on incidents I went to I never lost anybody.”
His biggest fear was, being in the middle
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