The Outsider: The Autobiography of One of Britain's Most Controversial Policemen

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His mother, a club dancer, was always bringing home different men, and would tie him to the table-leg to keep him quiet.

Sports Direct's founder and Executive Deputy chairman – Mike Ashley – was criticised by the tribunal for 'disgraceful and unlawful employment practices'. He resigned from his position in July 2002 over the government's reclassification of cannabis from a Class B to a Class C substance. He started work as a coal miner in 1958 but left to pursue a career in the Huddersfield Borough Police in 1962, gaining entry at the second attempt.Keith Hellawell QPM (born 18 May 1942) is a British retired police officer, [1] former UK Government drugs-czar, ex-chairman of Sports Direct plc.

He was required to give evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs on 25 March 2015 in relation to alleged poor employment practices at the company – particularly around its widespread use of 'zero-hours contracts' and the dismissal by its wholly owned subsidiary, USC, of 200 warehouse staff in Scotland with only 15 minutes' notice. Keith Hellawell was born and brought up in Yorkshire and, after spending some years working as a minter, has been a policeman all his life. These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site.Thereafter he as successively Deputy Chief Constable, Humberside Police, Chief Constable, Cleveland Police, and Chief Constable, West Yorkshire Police. He also completed an MSc in Social Policy from Cranfield University and an external degree in Law from the University of London. He was jeered and booed at a Police Federation meeting in response to changes he introduced to the West Yorkshire CID. As a teenager he went to work in the coal mines, before joining the police force at 20, where he was promoted to the rank of sergeant in 1965 and inspector in 1966. He went to school at Kirkburton Secondary Modern School until the age of 15, when he left without a single exam pass, then went to Dewsbury Technical College and Barnsley College of Mining.

Two former detectives, Roy Smith and Laurence Andrews, took objection to the book which claimed they had conspired to pervert the course of justice when investigating a murder in 1968 in Aspley.It was a hard-bitten, inauspicious start for a man who was eventually to become Chief Constable of Cleveland, and then West Yorkshire, and later, controversially, New Labour’s much-feted and summarily dismissed ‘Drugs Tsar’. So Wednesday’s annual shareholder meeting at embattled retailer Sports Direct – where Hellawell will be bracing himself for investors to vote on his future as the company’s chairman – merely appears like the continuation of a trend. He was appointed chairman of Goldshield in 2006, a pharmaceuticals business that was facing a criminal prosecution for colluding to overcharge the NHS for generic drugs. Hellawell resigned from his position as Sports Direct chairman in September 2018, on the day of the company's AGM.

Following a profit fall during 2016 of 57%, Hellawell stated that an "extreme political, union and media campaign [had been] waged against this company". tv View image in fullscreen Keith Hellawell appearing before the Scottish Affairs Committee 2015 Photograph: parliamentlive. The Outsider is the autobiography of a man of absolute integrity fired by the determination to better not only his own lot, but that of other humans as well, and to change things from the inside. He fell out with his Whitehall bosses and, while he had already resigned, publicly announced his departure in 2002 during an interview on Radio Four’s Today programme.

He later became Chief Constable of Cleveland police and in 1993 became Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. The tough life of one of Britain’s most senior policemen, who rose through the ranks from poverty and deprivation to the highest office, and went on to become Blair’s ‘Drug Czar’. He deals with the issues of racism, sexism and political correctness, and provides a rare insight into the workings of the judiciary, royalty and the establishment. Here is a man of intellect, probity, progressive ideas and the energy to carry them through, who spent his working life in the two most rigid, conservative and autocratic organisations in the country-the police force and the civil service. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is the changing nature of policing since the 1960s, when crime was far lower and villains were regularly given a good hiding.