He was required to give evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs on 25 March 2015 in relation to alleged poor employment practices at the company – particularly around its widespread use of 'zero-hours contracts' and the dismissal by its wholly owned subsidiary, USC, of 200 warehouse staff in Scotland with only 15 minutes' notice. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bradford in 1998, [19] and an honorary degree by Leeds Metropolitan University in 1997. 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.

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. He later became Chief Constable of Cleveland police and in 1993 became Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. 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.

It was just part of the rapport thing [to get Sutcliffe to open up], that was all,” he told the Sunday Times in 2000, but a disgusted Broadmoor staffer informed the Daily Mail and Hellawell was lambasted in the press. He fell out with his Whitehall bosses and, while he had already resigned, publicly announced his departure in 2002 during an interview on Radio Four’s Today programme. 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. Following a profit fall during 2016 of 57%, Hellawell stated that an "extreme political, union and media campaign [had been] waged against this company". 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.

Here is a man of intellect, probity, progressive ideas and the energy to carry them through, who spent his working life in the two most rigid, conservative and autocratic organisations in the country-the police force and the civil service. 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’. He resigned from his position in July 2002 over the government's reclassification of cannabis from a Class B to a Class C substance. 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. Sports Direct's founder and Executive Deputy chairman – Mike Ashley – was criticised by the tribunal for 'disgraceful and unlawful employment practices'.

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. 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. 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. He endured it as a controversial chief constable of West Yorkshire police – and then memorably again during his quarrelsome stint as an adviser on drugs policy to the last Labour government.

In September 2015, Hellawell faced pressure to remove him as chairman of the company by minority shareholders. The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice. 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. Hellawell resigned from his position as Sports Direct chairman in September 2018, on the day of the company's AGM. Thereafter he as successively Deputy Chief Constable, Humberside Police, Chief Constable, Cleveland Police, and Chief Constable, West Yorkshire Police.When quizzed about then home secretary David Blunkett’s plan to downgrade the classification of cannabis from a Class B drug to Class C, Hellawell said on air that he opposed the policy. 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’.