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

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

In his current guise, the former policeman has become the obvious target for disgruntled investors in the sportswear chain, which is 55% owned by the billionaire Mike Ashley and has been widely criticised over its working practices and corporate governance. 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". 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 has previously talked of how he never knew his father and how as a boy he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a young man who had access to their tenement rooms. In the seventies he served in Northern Ireland, and h became Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983. Claimed to be Britain's then youngest police sergeant at age 23, after passing a fast track examination he was appointed Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. 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’.

However, since then, new rules mean that non-executive directors in companies with a single dominant investor must be put to a vote of minority shareholders first.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. 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. 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.

tv View image in fullscreen Keith Hellawell appearing before the Scottish Affairs Committee 2015 Photograph: parliamentlive. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. View image in fullscreen Keith Hellawell held his role as advisor to Labour on drugs policy, or the nation’s ‘drug tsar’ from 1998 to 2003. In the 1980s he was seconded to interrogate Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, and reportedly succeeded in establishing that the serial killer had attempted two further murders. It was his expertise in narcotics that led to his appointment in 1998 as the UK’s “drug tsar”, only for that position to be downgraded in 2001 to an advisory role.They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. He also completed an MSc in Social Policy from Cranfield University and an external degree in Law from the University of London. citation needed] Rising through the ranks, including working in CID, he was appointed Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983, then Deputy Chief Constable of Humberside Police in 1985. These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site.

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 awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bradford in 1998, [19] and an honorary degree by Leeds Metropolitan University in 1997. 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. Sports Direct's founder and Executive Deputy chairman – Mike Ashley – was criticised by the tribunal for 'disgraceful and unlawful employment practices'. 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. 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.