Norwell Roberts

Norwell Roberts was born in 1945 in Anguilla, and moved to the UK in 1956 to join his mother in Kent, in the predominantly white suburb of Bromley. After a school career marred by racism and a stint as an impoverished lab assistant, aged 20 he saw an ad recruiting for the Metropolitan Police and applied, though like all Black candidates at the time he was rejected due to the catch-all excuse of ‘temperament’. He reapplied and was accepted a year later, embarking on a 30+ year career that took him undercover, on some of the biggest cases in London policing, and ultimately to the higher levels of the Met. He is now retired to focus on charity work.