Detective Constable John Robinson

I joined Cumbria Constabulary aged 25 as a bored civil servant that used to calculate pensions. I spent the first three years of my career in uniform learning the law and how to practically apply it to situations. My biggest strength in those early days was getting results and admissions from suspects in interview situations. These skills grew and I started generating more and more intelligence by being good at talking to people. By generating my own intelligence this lead to executing lots of drug and burglary warrants. I was approached to apply for the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and the rest is history!

I spent 10 years as a tutor and divisional detective dealing with a variety of serious investigations, including murders, assaults, burglaries and sexual offences. Being the lead investigator in major incidents carries huge responsibility but the reward of putting dangerous criminals in prison makes the hard work worthwhile; nothing in life could be more fulfilling.

The reward of putting dangerous criminals in prison makes the hard work worthwhile; nothing in life could be more fulfilling.
 
I have since undertaken roles working with Immigration Enforcement for two years in Manchester, dealing with asylum seekers and organised people trafficking gangs. I have also retrained as a financial investigator and fraud investigator working for the Serious Organised Crime Unit. This retraining provided me with external professional qualifications with an HNC in Fraud Management from Teesside University. I am one of only two specialist fraud investigators within the force. I also have a side line role as an extradition officer which allows me to travel the world bringing criminals back into the UK to face justice, as well as deporting criminals to their own countries.

I feel very fortunate to have had these experiences and have stayed as a career detective due to my roles having been so rewarding.

I don’t believe any career provides the sheer variety of work and opportunities that being a detective can.