13 Meet the Locals

Mike Neville

Under the spotlight in this months ‘Meet the Locals’ article is Mike Neville who has had a fascinating career in the army and in policing. He settled in New Milton on retirement. Mike was born and raised in Bolton in Lancashire. Whilst attending the local Grammar School he joined the army cadets which set him on his early career path. At the age of 16 he enlisted in the Junior Leaders unit of the Royal Armoured Corps at Bovington in Dorset. It was almost inevitable that Mike would have ended up in the army as he was the fourth generation of his family to serve in the armed forces. Mike’s adult service in the army was with the Royal Military Police. He was posted to Munster in Germany and to Northern Ireland. After leaving the army in 1988, Mike joined the Metropolitan Police. After training at Hendon, he was posted to Clapham as a probationary constable. Whilst serving as a beat officer Mike became an instructor in the army cadets. As an officer he commanded a detachment. This was extremely helpful as it enabled him to get to know the local youths and their parents on his beat and for them to know him. It meant that Mike was not just ‘another copper’ but was one who was clearly seen to be working for the benefit of the local community. It enabled him to defuse tensions in the local community. Mike became a trainee Detective Constable, still based at Clapham. It was here that he and a colleague ended up dealing with a string of armed robberies at banks and post offices. They were carried out over a wide area of London by the same gang. Often there were CCTV images of the suspects but at that time, these were not being shared across the whole of the Metropolitan Police, just to the police units nearest the crime scene. Mike and his colleague managed to arrest and successfully prosecute the gang who were responsible for at least 132 robberies. Mike realised that the system the Metropolitan Police had for managing the CCTV images of suspects needed to be overhauled. In 2006 he set up a dedicated unit that was tasked with reviewing CCTV footage from hundreds of thousands of CCTV cameras in the capital. Mike became aware of police officers who were exceptional at recognising suspects from CCTV and other images. In 2009, in the USA Professor Richard Russell was studying a condition known as prosopagnosia where people have great difficulty recognising faces, sometimes even their own in a photograph. Russell heard that there were individuals at the other extreme of the scale and carried out test on them and found that they were about 90% accurate in their recognition of faces. As a result, Russell wrote an academic paper about those with this extraordinary skill and named them ‘Super Recognisers’. UK based psychologist Josh Davis wrote his dissertation on forensic analysis of CCTV footage. His paper was

M Mi ik ke e a an nd d d da au ug gh ht te er r I Is sa ab be el l a at t t th he e W Wa ar r M Me em mo or ri ia al l concerned with the problems of misidentification and how poor some witnesses and police officers were at identifying suspects filmed on CCTV. Mike Neville contacted him and they worked together to study the Super Recognisers in his unit. Davis subjected the officers to a series of facial recognition tests. Those that performed well were asked by Mike to carry out further identifications of individuals from CCTV images. Mike was then a Detective Inspector running the Metropolitan Police Circulation Unit which was able to handle CCTV images of suspects in a far more professional way, enabling more identification to be made. In 2011 there was widespread rioting and looting in London with copy-cat offences in other parts of the country. The Met. Police started to analyse over two hundred thousand hours of CCTV footage recording the events. The advanced computer facial recognition software that the Police were using at that time identified one suspect. A single Super Recogniser identified over a hundred and ninety. It was then that the Metropolitan Police started take note of the Super Recognisers. Since then, this area of police work has grown in acceptance. In 2013 Mike, by now a Detective Chief Inspector was asked to set up a dedicated unit with 6 Super Recognisers based at New Scotland Yard. By 2016 Super Recognisers were responsible for 2,500 identifications in criminal cases that led to a conviction or caution. All other forms of forensic science made a

combined 4,500 positive identifications. Mike’s unit was called on to assist in numerous other cases such as the 2018 Salisbury incident where Russian agents attempted to murder a former Russian secret service officer and his daughter using a poison called Novichok. They have also assisted foreign police forces with their investigations. In 2017 Mike retired from the Metropolitan Police and set up his own company called Super Recognisers International. They employ people from all walks of life who have the ability to always remember a face. They are asked to assist clients such as airport security, large public event security and private companies and individuals. They are also contracted by police forces around the world. Mike continues to serve as a Colonel in the Army Cadets. After teaching himself to play the flute he gradually became more involved in the national training of army cadet bands and currently organises over 80 cadet music units. Mike has managed to combine his long association with Freemasonry and his great interest in history. He has written books on Freemasonry links to historic crimes. He also runs Jack the Ripper historical walks in London taking clients to the locations of the infamous murders and recounting what happened there. We wish Mike a long and happy retirement. If you would like to find out more about Super Recognisers visit their website at www.superrecognisersinternation al.com There is a link to the national association that will enable you to take a test to see if you have the skills needed to be a Super Recogniser. N Ni ic ck k S Sa au un nd de er rs s Please men onM Mi ik ke e o on nthis mG Ge er rm ma an n agazine when conT TV V d do oc cu um me en nt ta ar ry y tac ng any of the adver sers 9