The Met Police: first Black officer

One of Britain's first black police officers, Norwell Roberts, has been honoured by his former colleagues.

He was born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts and joined the Met on November 6, 1967, and later joined the CID where he had a "very distinguished" detective career.

A room was named after him at the Metropolitan Police Service's new training centre.

In 1996 he was awarded the QPM for 30 years' distinguished service before retiring in 1997.

His father died when he was three years old and his widowed mother, lured by promises of job opportunities and a better life, sailed for England in 1954. Roberts was left behind, to be raised by his strict preacher grandparents.

He arrived at the port of Dover at age nine when his mother secured employment as a housemaid in London. Roberts and his mother found life in England difficult, as with most post-war immigrants, securing housing was hard due to prejudices at the time. At home in Anguilla, Roberts' mother had run several neighbourhood shops but in London she took any domestic jobs she could get. Roberts and his mother eventually settled in Bromley, Kent.

In 1956, Roberts was the only black child in his elementary school, and when he passed the eleven-plus, the headmistress told his mother that Roberts would not be going to grammar school because he had to 'learn the English ways'.

As a result Norwell instead went to the local secondary modern school in Bromley, where the older sixth form students dropped him head first to the ground in order to see the colour of his blood. He still carries the scar on his forehead, but never once complained to his mother, because he understood that she had been powerless to act.

After constant misspelling of the name "Gumbs", he changed his name in 1968 by deed poll, taking his mother's maiden name of Roberts.

Roberts in applying to join the Met police force was continuing a family tradition. In Anguilla, his grandfather was sergeant and in various islands in the West Indies he had three uncles who were all high-ranking officers, one of whom was awarded the Colonial Police Medal for his services. They all attended, on secondment, Hendon Police College during their career, where Roberts also trained.

He won an outstanding commendation for the arrest of five contract killers in 1985, and two other commendations for covert operations with the Drugs Squad.

Superintendent Robyn Williams, said:

As we reach the milestone of achieving over 4,000 BME officers, we must not forget the trailblazers. Almost 50 years ago, a young Norwell Roberts was the first black officer to join the modern police service."

OBV Staff writer