Black in blue?

With our news bulletins so often being dominated by street violence, one person you often hear being interviewed as an expert is Leroy Logan, who now runs his own security consultancy. But for thirty years, he was a policeman at the heart of the Met – described at the Macpherson Inquiry as ‘institutionally racist’ – an inquiry that he took part in. A committed Christian, he was also one of the founders of the Black Police Association, and his book about his life, Closing Ranks – my life as a Cop, is out now. His story is also the focus of an episode of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series on the BBC, and film star John Boyega plays him. His career was distinguished, and he worked long and hard to change race relations on the streets of London, being made an MBE in 2000. But it was never plain sailing, not even from the beginning…

Early days

When Leroy Logan joined the Met in the early 1980s, he did so despite the misgivings of his own family and indeed his own heart. As a black man l...