A RETIRING North Yorkshire Police officer has looked back at almost 30 years on the force.

Detective Constable Kevan Howe recently retired, but has been looking back through his notebooks since he started on Tuesday, May 5, 1987, and his first month included a stint as tea boy in the incident room investigating a death.

His father was a police officer with the North Riding Constabulary between January 1958 and April 1968, and transferred to Teesside Constabulary (later Cleveland Constabulary), in 1974. He retired in 1991 as a Sergeant when he also received the Queens Honour of the British Empire Medal (BEM).

Mr Howe said: "Maybe because of dad being a police officer and his influence I always wanted to join the police. Unfortunately when I left college in 1983 I wasn’t tall enough to be a policeman."

He worked in a clerical job for just over three years, and applied for North Yorkshire Police when he reached the required height, passing his entrance test and assessment courses in 1986.

He said: "I can’t specifically remember my first day but having looked at my pocket notebook it was Tuesday, May 5, 1987, 10pm to 6am - a night shift at Stokesley.

"What I remember very clearly is that just over a week into my service the body of Barry Oldham was found on Clay Bank, Great Broughton near Stokesley and a murder enquiry was launched. The incident room was situated at Stokesley Police Station and on Thursday, May 14 1987, I got drafted into the incident room as a tea boy. The experience I gained over the weeks and months working in and around senior detective officers, senior Police officers and HOLMES room staff was invaluable and was probably the reason why from that point onwards I always wanted to pursue a career in CID."

Mr Howe moved into CID in 1989 after working in uniform for two years, and spent the rest of his career either in CID or Intelligence, and said "investigating crime is and has always been the favourite part of the job for me".

Major incidents Mr Howe has covered include the murder of David Hall in 1992, a blackmail and product contamination case at Tesco in 1997, the 2001 Great Heck train disaster, the murder of Hyo Jung Jin whose body was found in a suitcase in Askham Richard in 2001, and the 2005 London bombings.

He said: "I think the hardest part of the job is delivering a death message, particularly when the death of an individual is unexpected or it concerns a baby or small child, it’s particularly emotive.

"The highlight of my career has to be working on the 2012 London Olympics. I worked as an intelligence officer in the National Olympic Coordination Centre (NOCC), New Scotland Yard from May until September 2012. From the NOCC we covered the Olympic Torch Relay nationwide, the Olympics and the Paralympics. I have many fantastic memories of my time spent down in London.

Mr Howe said his career had been "an unbelievable working experience", but the force had changed greatly in the last three decades.

He said: "I’m not sure that the way the police service operates now can afford the individual the opportunities that have presented themselves to me in my career.

"I’m not sure that I would actively encourage anybody to join but equally I would encourage anyone interested in becoming a police officer to go for it, and refer to all the positive aspects of the job that I have found so rewarding over the years. It worries me that there seems to be an emphasis nationally on recruiting student officers with degrees as I have decent qualifications but I didn’t go to university, preferring to start work after leaving college instead."

Mr Howe said he will spend his retirement working part time at a social club near his home, and trying to lower his golf handicap to single figures.