Detective Inspector Kay Lancaster leads Operation Manhunt – a Hertfordshire Police team targeting criminals who prey on the elderly. Her chief constable has just given top priority to her team’s investigation into a gang who have notched up thirteen distraction burglaries against pensioners - so the pressure is on to get a result. At home – and supposedly off duty – single mum Kay juggles work calls and cooking duties for her two boys. For twenty years, her workload has been crime and cruelty but she tries to make sure her children, aged 9 and 10, don’t get frightened by their mum’s day job: “I think my children have got crime in perspective. They’re not scared – because I’m protecting them.”
Detective Inspector Kay Lancaster works in one of the most heartbreaking areas of Hertfordshire Police – crime against the elderly. Time after time, she sees elderly people broken and demoralised by ruthless criminals who specialise in victimising the elderly. Kay leads a team called Operation Manhunt, targeting these criminals, and she’s proud of the 50 per cent conviction rate they achieve. Sometimes the results come too late for victims who are near the end of their lives: “Sometimes it’s their lasting memory of society and that’s very sad,” she says. Kay has two decades of police experience and her work has exposed her to the worst of humanity. Under her desk, by her high heels, she keeps her “working kit” of fluorescent jacket and wellies: “I have been known to stand in a field most of the night digging up a shallow grave and you don’t want to do that in high heels.”
Detective Chief Inspector Julie Wheatley is one of only six women in her rank in Hertfordshire. When a convicted killer comes to the end of his life sentence she’s the one who oversees his release and ensures the public is safe. Running the county’s Offender Management Programme can be a tricky job but as she says “you can’t keep people in prison forever” – even violent criminals and sex offenders. At home, Julie starts her second job looking after her daughter, a 16-year-old with learning disabilities. Despite the challenges of a teenager who needs so much care, Julie enjoys the simplicity of their relationship and embraces life with Sarah with great warmth and humour. In contrast to the criminals she meets at work Julie says: “There’s no malice in Sarah, and I delight in that.”
Detective Inspector Jo Walker leads Hertfordshire Police’s Child Protection Unit. It’s a gruelling and pressurised role – last year, her team secured 136 convictions for child abuse and cruelty. We meet Jo as she supervises investigations into a suspected groomer of young girls and into a case of historic abuse, where the victim is coming forward years after the offence. Complaints like this have leapt fourfold in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal and the work takes its toll: "I have faces and images in my head which I will take with me to my grave," she says. "You never forget a face...I'm tough but I'm not that tough." Through it all – and with the help of her ex-policeman husband, sixteen-year-old son and two dogs – Jo manages to stay sane and cheerful.
Meet Detective Inspector Jo Walker, head of Hertfordshire Police’s Child Protection Unit, who has an agonising decision to make. In a nearby hospital, a tiny baby is fighting for its life with terrible injuries. Downstairs, in the cells at a Hertfordshire police station, the parents are undergoing questioning. They say the injuries were caused at birth. Jo must decide: release the parents to comfort their sick baby? Or investigate them as suspects and keep them in custody? Decisions like this are high-risk and high-stakes in the wake of the Baby P scandal. The case turns out to be one of the most serious Jo has ever dealt with. And she has to cope with leading the investigation in the same year her husband is being treated for a serious blood cancer.
Detective Inspector Lynda Coates is head of Hertfordshire Police’s Offender Management Team whose work is regarded as pioneering. She keeps a close eye on the county’s 200 most prolific offenders – a small number of criminals who commit the vast proportion of burglaries. Her job is to keep them away from crime. And her most powerful weapon is persuading them to wear a GPS ankle tag so she can track their every move and prevent them from committing crimes. Linda’s biggest challenge is turning around the criminals she’s known since they were kids. Linda acknowledges that they tread a fine line in deciding who should be put into prison and who should be given another chance, but points out that offenders can’t stay in prison for ever: “We need to continue to work with our most prolific offenders because if we don’t we’re going to have more victims and that’s the last thing anybody wants.” Lynda says managing offenders is like managing children, but at home she can enjoy a break from crime, playing with her two young children. “I know there are bad people out there but I don’t want to scare them”.