NICKY PERFECT OPENS UP ABOUT HER FORMER CAREER AS A CRISIS AND HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR
For three decades, Nicky Perfect served on the frontline of British policing. After signing up as a cadet when she was 18 years old, she was a police officer for 20 years, before switching to being a crisis and hostage negotiator. For those ten years, before her retirement from the Force in 2018, she was diffusing the most volatile of situations, with her day-to-day work made up of kidnappings, terrorist incidents, violent armed stand-offs and literally talking people back from the edge. Among the high-profile incidents she has been involved with are the release of a charity worker who was kidnapped by a criminal gang in Brazil, and talking Fathers 4 Justice protesters down from the roof of a prominent politician’s home. As she relives her career in her new memoir, we caught up with Nicky, 55, to find out more…
What first drew you to becoming a negotiator?
It was from a chance conversation. I had been a police officer for 20 years, and was working in firearms at the time. It was heavily male-dominated – with seven women out of 650 guys back then – and I had felt for some time that the environment didn’t suit me. When a new superintendent joined, she took me under her wing and became my mentor. One day, she said, “Nicky, have you ever thought about becoming a negotiator?” I’d worked with them a lot in firearms and other areas of policing, and thought it was an interesting idea, so I researched to find out if it would suit me before I applied. It was a rigorous selection process – you have to be interviewed, do a written exam, and then role play. If you are successful, you go on a very intensive two-week course, where they put a spotlight on everything you say and do, changing the way you communicate. That course was an epiphany moment for me. It made me realise this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my career. There was a full-time unit of just six negotiators that worked out of New Scotland Yard at the time. I really wanted to be on that unit, so that was my next aim. Eventually in 2012, I managed to get on. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for, but it was a really proud moment.
You were on the team who talked Fathers 4 Justice protesters off the roof of an MP’s home in June 2008. What was that like?
I got the chance to observe the negotiators for that one and learned a lot. I was fascinated by how the negotiators handled the situation. Mostly in policing, you have “authority conversations”, directing people and telling them what to do. This was a very different style of policing. It’s not shouty or aggressive, it’s about listening to someone and keeping the communication channels open.
What was the most common incident you had to work on?
The most common insta
