Further promotion gave an opportunity to put the lessons learnt at Brixton into practice across the depressed estates in North Peckham. The communities were dispossessed from social equality and suffered from high rates of illegal drug use and crime. People with a heart for relationships operated summer projects and police raised £120,000 to fund them. Children were taken to the seaside for the first time and horizons were opened to show that there was a whole world beyond the estates. These successes led to work on behalf of the Commissioner to initiate and review projects in other parts of London and a role in the inquiry into the police investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder.
On his appointment as Deputy Chief Constable of West Midlands Police Mr. Baggott encouraged his officers to identify with their communities and to become agents of change. He is convinced that policing has a spiritual dimension and some of the best results he has observed have been when police and faith communities work together, such as drug dealers coming to Christ and relinquishing their old lives. Chaplains have a place in the mechanistic world of policing. They cannot, must not, be placed in boxes under control. They need to be encouraged and supported in the work they undertake.
If a guiding text was needed for chaplaincy in general Mr. Baggott suggested Isaiah 58:12, which had been suggested to him by the religious leaders of Peckham as their reflection of how Mr. Baggott's faith had fashioned his period of policing there and, he feels, since.
A Safe Community.
Terry Day reflects on the presentation by Mr. Matt Baggott, Chief Constable Leicestershire Constabulary and Vice-President National Association of Chaplains to Police, (NACP)
Mr. Baggott began by thanking the conference for the opportunity to share his thoughts about enhancing quality of community life in areas he had served and now in Leicestershire for which he is responsible as Chief Constable. He offered that this could be summed up as a matter of personal relationships, which had to be based on trust and supported by openness in communication on all sides.
He presented a brief history of his early career having joined the Metropolitan Police in his nineteenth year. On leaving training school after basic training he was posted to the Peckham area of South London and the almost immediate freedom of driving a Panda car complete with blue lights and two-tone horns, which he was not allowed to use, (but seemed to come on occasionally, by accident). After completion of his two-year probationary period the eager young thief-taker found himself in plain clothes and eventually the CID, often working long hours, which kept him apart from his young family.
In due course it was suggested to him that he should consider sitting the promotion examination. The result of his efforts was sufficient for him to be promoted to Inspector at Brixton Police Station, shortly after the riots, in charge of a Tactical Support Group, (in media speak riot police). A seminal point in his realisation of the need to be open with communities came when his team was called to a man holding a child hostage and was threatening to detonate a large amount of petrol if police entered the flat. Entry was made with support of fire brigade officers who were able to douse the resultant flames before significant damage could occur. On emerging Mr. Baggott found that the large crowd had been told that police had entered with flamethrowers and attacked the man.
Another came when a constable at Brixton pointed out that an estate where social expectation was zero had become a haven for drug dealers. With the dealers arrested the community became involved in projects to improve their own situation with the support of Mr. Baggott and his officers. Police began to communicate and gain trust particularly with disaffected young people offered places on outward-bound type courses. The estate became a model of social improvement and the community thrived with reduced crime levels and an uplift of community spirit allied to an ownership of their environment. Mr. Baggott also begin to understand why God had used his faith and directed him as a younger man into the police service
