Peter Moule joined the Police on 22nd December 1975. He went to Ashford Police Training College for his training and his first wage packet was £127 for the month. This was significantly lower than his wages from Eastern Electricity.
His first posting was Colchester, and his first duties was to watch the rear gate to ensure security was maintained during the heightened IRA activity. It was during this time he met his Supt and C/Chief Supt, one interaction was positive and the other not so!
He vividly remembers being called back into work after nights because he missed a shop burglary
After 2 years Pete went to CID at Colchester, and worked with some of Essex Polices’ characters. He decided that CID was not his chosen career decided to move to the Force Support Unit based in Chelmsford. He was deployed to the Miners Strike which lasted for 9 months they were billeted at Proteus where the accommodation was basic!
To prepare for the miners strike they trained hard . They were initially trained with tennis balls being thrown! The FSU decided that this wasn’t sufficient and made their own petrol bombs and swapped the tennis balls for bricks. The first deployment was without any PPE at Orgreave wearing just normal uniform.
Pete recalls stopping Fatima Whitbread in Ingrave for driving so slowly. She went on to sign the inside of the hat belonging to Brian “Bill” Bishop before making her way home. Bill was murdered in August 84 following an armed robbery in Frinton On Sea.
Pete decided to transfer to the City Of London to undertake more close protection roles. He went onto protect a number of dignitaries from the Royal Family to Heads of States. Pete recounts his deployment with The Queen mother.
The City Of London had a odd view of transferees. Its petes view that the City wanted the information from the transferees that City were so clearly lacking!
During his time in Essex Pete qualified as a hypnotherapist and he carried this on in the City. He set up his own business in this field and was mentored by Dr Eric Sheppard. He went on to qualify as a stress counsellor. Pete has given talks at Portcullis House to deliver his views in dealing with PTSD.
Pete left the City and joined the National Crime Squad at Crawley where he concluded his career.
Pete is involved in the canoeing and kayaking world and has attended the Olympics across the world as a technical official and chief starter for events.
He is a cancer survivor and is in remission and talks candidly and positively about his experience.
Life is good for Pete and he shares his time with his family and learning. His challenge is to learn a unconventional way of reading 25k words a minute.
Listen to his podcast about policing in the 70s
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