FEATURE I Stories of transformation
Simon Pinchbeck A complete turn around Major Rosemary Dawson continues a series in which she remembers some of the inspirational people she met while working on the War Cry
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N obsession with money and a serious assault charge against a fellow officer ended a 23-year high profile career with the Metropolitan Police for Simon Pinchbeck. That obsession also led him into a dangerous liaison with the very people he once tried to apprehend. ‘I went from hero to zero – from being a respectable police officer to no better than a common criminal,’ he confessed. ‘Money became my god. I didn’t care where it came from or how I got it. I was near rock-bottom when God used a reformed villain to get me back on the straight and narrow.’ Joining the Met in 1976, Simon walked the beat in north London before becoming part of the Territorial Support Group, which specialised in public order policing. ‘I was also the Met’s boxing champion,’ he said, ‘and played rugby for the police and other clubs. That was the best period in my career. ‘I was about 40 when I moved to Enfield with my wife and our two young boys. I suppose I had a midlife crisis; I was with a younger squad, all single guys, and adapted to their lifestyle of pubs and clubs. I tried recreational drugs and steroids and could drink for the whole police force. I didn’t care about my family; I just wanted to be out with the lads. ‘We had access to information when organised violence was going to happen. I was right in the thick of the action, addicted to the excitement. That kind of 24-7 job didn’t help my marriage either. ‘Then I got into a fight with another police officer and knocked his teeth out. I was suspended and put on a criminal charge. After a five-day trial at the Crown Court I was acquitted but given a “medical discharge” from the Met. ‘I became increasingly attracted to a more criminal way of life, and that greed led to my downfall. At the gym I mixed with men with money and power from the criminal fraternity. They persuaded me to speculate in a get-rich-quick scheme in Spain. I didn’t smell the rat; I only saw the pound signs.
Simon (right) boxing for the Met
‘That was the last I saw of my cash,’ Simon said ruefully. ‘Discovering I’d been set up was the lowest point in my life. All my access to money had gone, and I was deep in debt. I had no friends left in the Met; even the criminals didn’t trust me! ‘I was at the gym one Saturday, plotting revenge, when I saw a once notorious drugs baron – now a Christian – on the rowing machine. I thought, “If God can do it for him, maybe he can do the same for me.” ‘So I got talking to him, about life in general and about God. He’d been a football hooligan and I’d chased him all over the terraces – now he was teaching me about God! ‘After meeting up a few times, he suggested I go to church. I was brought up a Catholic but, to me, “church” just meant saying lots of prayers. I’d sworn on the Bible many times during my career, but it could have been a women’s magazine for all it meant.’ Still angry and bitter towards the people who conned him, Simon eventually went to a service at Holy Trinity, Brompton, where Nicky Gumbel – the minister who pioneered the Alpha course – prayed with him. ‘Undergoing the course taught me what it meant to be a Christian and helped me make a proper commitment to God,’ recalled Simon. ‘I asked him to
bring peace into my life – and he did. All the anger, bitterness and resentment about the past went from me. It was an amazing feeling.’ Simon was also reconciled with his father, who was undergoing treatment for leukaemia. Simon prayed with him, asking that he be given peace of mind. ‘When he died I had a great sense of peace because he had a knowledge of God,’ he said. ‘If I’d hung on to my resentments, he wouldn’t have had that.’ Simon’s life had completely turned around, as he explained: ‘In the past I tried to fill the hole in my life with money, clairvoyants and books telling you how to change your life. They didn’t work. It took me 40 years of going round in circles before I found the love of Jesus and became a complete person. ‘I still find it hard to be a Christian,’ he said, ‘but now I know I don’t have to struggle alone. If I do stumble, I know I can ask forgiveness and be helped along the way.’ O Based
on an article published in the War Cry, 4 August 2007
MAJOR ROSEMARY DAWSON MA Retired St Austell
Salvationist 18 June 2022
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