Barbara Wilding interview: 'the growing rift between young and old'

But as she starts to empty the cupboards in her chief constable’s office in South Wales, bringing to a close a 42-year career in policing, she is in reflective mood about the elderly and what she suggests is a growing rift in society between young and old.

A dangerous wedge has been driven between the two generations, exacerbated by Government policy she suggests, with drastic consequences at both extremes.

On one hand, “the way which we as a society are treating young people is I think hugely worrying” she said.

On the flip side is the effect this has on the younger generations’ opinion of their elders.

“Elderly abuse is something that we have yet to really grasp. It is one of the things that I think will be the next social explosion really,” she said.

Aged 59, a self-styled “granny” of police chief constables across the country, Miss Wilding leaves South Wales police in December as the longest serving female chief constable in Britain.

She smiles at how things have changed from the “Life on Mars years” of the 1970s – when she was called “Lady Barbara” and considered to be “from outer space” by a boss straight from the Gene Hunt school of male chauvinism.

Having pushed through numerous glass ceilings, Miss Wilding is now one of the most authoritative voices in policing; one interested not solely with targets and statistics, but with society and the role of police in managing it.

“There is this rift between people under 25 and people over 50, who only have to see young people on the street and they call it anti-social behaviour.

“This growing intolerance and fear of young people has not been helped by the ‘tough on crime’ political views. Every party has been ‘tougher’ than the last one and young people seem to be the butt of it.

“The push on targets through the issuing of Antisocial Behaviour Orders meant I’m afraid that a lot of young people were brought in.

“Some of my colleagues have seen the criminalisation of young people in their forces gone up by 60 per cent in one year.”

She agrees that some youths are “louts and thugs” who need to be punished – or ideally targeted by earlier police intervention.

But she said that too often just a group of children walking down the street is reported to police as anti-social behaviour.

“They have just as much right to be there as three elderly people going to collect their pension. But there is that intolerance and fear and we need to bridge that gap.”

What about the flip side of the problem – the younger generations’ view of the elderly?

“Elderly abuse is something that we have yet to really grasp. It is one of the things that I think will be the next social explosion really,” she said.

“It could range from the violent through to the psychological - not providing the medical care at the right time, not looking after people to their needs or recognising that they are valuable members of society.

“I was around just after Maria Colwell in 1973 – the first child abuse case, and worked on child sex abuse in the 70s when that was starting to be identified.

“I can see the same sort of social issues here - how they can be covered up and the victims do not have a voice.

“The more there is a rift between older and younger people, the more that could potentially grow.”

The latest evidence of an ageing population, in figures released this week, revealed that there are a record number of mid-octogenarians - 1.3 million over 85s, making up 2 per cent of the total.

“There are so many statistics around about the viability of being able to maintain an older generation and the number of young people in work having to bear the taxes.

“I think that’s a real cause of concern because we will see it perceived as a burden”.

The debate on assisted dying is a particular concern.

“I worry about some of the infrastructures to cope with older people who need caring for and who monitors them if they are cared for at home,” she said.

“On assisted suicide, from a policing perspective we need to be very careful on this to make sure it does not become a way of getting rid of a burden.”

There are other practical issues to grasp with an ageing population as well.

“We are starting to see people of an older age becoming suspects. People in their 50s, 60s. Certainly around fraud, but also in other areas, some in violence.”

She says it throws up a whole new set of questions for police handling of suspects and law.

“Do we let them have more sleep, because we know they are likely to be more confused before we interview them? How do we do that?

“When do we get them into court? Do they need an appropriate adult – like you would with a child?

“There are not the policies on this, and we have to start from scratch and we need to start looking at it.”

Miss Wilding says that over the past decade it has become clear to her as chief constable that “policing cannot just do enforcing on its own, it has to get involved in social engineering”.

How things have changed from the old days of when she used to chase robbers as a constable in the East End of London.

Miss Wilding became a cadet in Jersey in 1967, a day before her 17th birthday.

Unlike her male colleagues, she could not become a full WPC at 19, because women were not considered to be mature enough at that age.

She transferred to the Metropolitan police and has pushed through endless glass ceilings - even keeping her maiden name when she married another policeman was considered controversial.

It started to come home recently when I was emptying cupboards and finding appraisals going back to 1978, when I was a detective sergeant in the East End.

One said ‘As the only woman in a male dominated environment Barbara sometimes over-reacts to criticism that she thinks is unfair’ - that was the only comment!

“Life on Mars is absolutely what I lived through when I was in the East End. When I saw Phillip Glenister [the Life on Mars actor] recently I told him that I used to work with him.

“I remember I used to almost run up and down on the spot complaining ‘listen to me’. They couldn’t.”

“I would say it’s come to the late 80s before you just became recognised for your ability and that as a woman you just do things differently, but that is ok.”

By then she was a leading murder detective, later heading the royal and diplomatic protection unit, Special Branch and becoming an assistant chief constable in Kent police before moving to South Wales in 2004.

It is with a tinge of sadness, therefore, that her retirement decreases the numbers of women of chief constable rank or quivalent to five, in the 43 forces of England and Wales.

Do we need more?

“Yes. We’re not representative at all yet. We definitely need more women chief constables because we bring a different dimension to the debate.”

Her husband Jeff, also a police officer at Scotland Yard, who ordered the arrest of Pinochet.

As for Miss Wilding’s future, her husband thinks she should go into politics but she hates the idea, and for now, her ambitions are a little less grand.

“I don’t have any grandchildren as yet,” she smiled. “But I want to write my memoirs for my them before I go too gaga.”