Stay together and stay strong: Roger’s retirement message to colleagues

16 December 2024

After 26 years with the Force, Dyfed Powys Police Federation secretary Roger Webb has retired, taking with him not just years of experience but also good memories of a fulfilling career during which he first enjoyed serving the public and more recently gained the satisfaction of being able to offer support to members in their time of need.

Having never really seen the Federation as part of his career path, he believes he leaves the branch in a strong position.

He has worked alongside two former chairs – Mark Bleasdale and Gareth Jones, who himself retired this summer – and says the new team of officials now in place will be able to build on strong foundations.

In addition to his role as full-time branch secretary, Roger has been the Federation’s conduct lead for Wales since 2018 and, right up to the time of his retirement, has also sat on the Federation’s national mutual aid team, which works on mutual aid deployments across the UK.

 

Roger Webb and his family.

 

“I was heavily involved when the police service responded to the riots in 2011, the 2012 Olympics, COP26 in Glasgow, Operation London Bridge when Queen Elizabeth died and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2023,” he says.

Roger is also proud to have been instrumental in launching Dyfed Powys Police Federation’s welfare van, which was deployed to the Queen’s funeral in London and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. After the success of the first van, ‘Copuccino’, and with the help of the Force, a second van was purchased.

Leadership

While he has loved his time with the Force, Roger strongly believes police officers are not allowed to get on with policing anymore: “Officers used to be out patrolling, dealing with people who needed dealing with, now they are having to deal with more social maters, picking up the slack for other over-stretched services. It’s just not the job it was.”

He believes the period of leadership under former Prime Minister Theresa May represented the darkest day for policing, leading to a long-term loss of public confidence and respect for officers on the ground. The Independent Office for Police Conduct, he says, is also allowed to run long-drawn-out investigations destroying officers both professionally and personally with their hindsight methods.

Roger was something of a latecomer to policing. At school, he had only put forward two career options, despite being advised that he needed to identify three choices.

“I only listed engineering or policing,” he recalls.

Initially, in 1984, he pursued the former, securing an HNC in engineering before becoming a research and development engineer.

Roger adds: “I had a varied career, working on the first active suspension for Lotus F1, as well as aviation projects both in the commercial and military sector.  Later, he designed small trains, finishing his engineering career with Panasonic UK. I then fancied a change and policing was something of an itch that I wanted to scratch.”

Despite living in Gwent, he applied to join Dyfed Powys Police and, on 8 June 1998, he embarked on his second career initially working as a probationer on response in Llanelli.

“I thoroughly enjoyed it, I took to it really quickly and my tutor Mal was an inspiration,” Roger explains.

From response he moved to the roads policing unit and shortly after armed response.

Promoted

In 2005, he was posted to Centrex, Cwmbran where he worked as a law trainer, returning to the Force in 2006 to lead on the new IPLDP course.  He remained in the training department until 2011 when he was posted back to Llanelli response.  Shortly after his return, he was promoted to temporary sergeant and remained in post until the return of promotion boards in 2015, where he was substantively promoted. 

In the background, Roger was becoming more and more involved in the Federation. He has been a workplace representative since 2011 and has held the lead roles for both professional development and conduct.

However, he only originally stood to become a rep when colleagues at Llanelli suggested it was something he would be good at.

“I was the oldest in age, and the oldest in service, and my team identified that I was always the one colleagues came to if they needed anything,” Roger explains, “It was not really a career path I had thought about. But, having become a rep, I very quickly got involved in conduct and other matters.

“Representing officers at COP26 and other key events have been highpoints of my career, but making a real difference to cops, supporting them through the worst times of their careers, securing the right results for them and through diligence and stubbornness enabling them to stay within policing when cases could have gone the other way, has really been the best thing.”

Retire

The only regret Roger lists is that he did not stand for a national Federation position at the last election as he feels he could have influenced change and ensured morals were upheld more vigorously.   

Roger himself has had the decision to retire taken out of his hands, after a shock illness in 2023 which led to surgery and further treatment. Now recovered, but with some lasting effects of his illness, he took ill-health retirement with his final day being 23 November.

“I didn’t foresee the end of my career. The circumstances of my retirement were out of my control. But I am leaving with my head held high and wish all serving officers all the best. I feel I have left the Federation office in a really good place and I wish new chair Delme Rees and secretary Ceris Davis all the best. I am sure they will do a great job,” he says.

Meanwhile, Roger will be getting to grips with retirement and wishes to keep active, lastly saying: “I wish all serving officers and staff out there the very best for the future, I cannot start to list those who have helped me, stay together and stay strong.”

READ MORE: Continuity and authenticity are priorities for new chair.