Benjamyn Damazer JP DL recently celebrated 50 years of working in policing. That policing career began as a Special Constable at the Metropolitan Police’s Golders Green Police Station. He subsequently was the longest serving member of his local Police Authority, prior to the replacement, in 2012, of Police Authorities by Police and Crime Commissioners. Amongst a number of other current responsibilities, he is a Magistrate, and Deputy Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire.

In part two of a two part series, Benjamyn continues his conversation with PolicingTV’s Bernard Rix on the street in London where Benjamyn’s policing career began. He tells us something about his career over, and observations from, that fifty year period, beginning in this video with the moment when he became a Member of his local Police Authority – or, rather, the Police Watch Committee.

“I was asked to represent the local Magistracy, on what was then known as the Police Watch Committee, and became the Shadow Police Authority, and then, in the mid 1990s, became the Police Authority.”

“In the early days of Police Authorities, the extent to which we could raise the local Precept was not bounded, and so you [had instances] where ‘this year, it’s going up by 48%…’ – it was always going up, it never went down!”

“It was my first personal introduction to real politics in this country, and how that works!”

“I’m very proud of the fact that I oversaw the project team to get Cambridgeshire a [first] helicopter”. 

“One of my fondest memories, as a Special, is that we’d set up a competition amongst local schoolchildren, to draw pictures of what the helicopters might do if Cambridgeshire had one. Being a lead judge on that… was a great moment.”