He endured it as a controversial chief constable of West Yorkshire police – and then memorably again during his quarrelsome stint as an adviser on drugs policy to the last Labour government. However, since then, new rules mean that non-executive directors in companies with a single dominant investor must be put to a vote of minority shareholders first. View image in fullscreen Keith Hellawell held his role as advisor to Labour on drugs policy, or the nation’s ‘drug tsar’ from 1998 to 2003. tv View image in fullscreen Keith Hellawell appearing before the Scottish Affairs Committee 2015 Photograph: parliamentlive.

He later became Chief Constable of Cleveland police and in 1993 became Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

In his current guise, the former policeman has become the obvious target for disgruntled investors in the sportswear chain, which is 55% owned by the billionaire Mike Ashley and has been widely criticised over its working practices and corporate governance. And he chronicles the often lonely challenges of dealing with the likes of Peter Sutcliffe in a police career that took him everywhere from Northern Ireland to Hollywood. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you.

He deals with the issues of racism, sexism and political correctness, and provides a rare insight into the workings of the judiciary, royalty and the establishment. It was a hard-bitten, inauspicious start for a man who was eventually to become Chief Constable of Cleveland, and then West Yorkshire, and later, controversially, New Labour’s much-feted and summarily dismissed ‘Drugs Tsar’.So Wednesday’s annual shareholder meeting at embattled retailer Sports Direct – where Hellawell will be bracing himself for investors to vote on his future as the company’s chairman – merely appears like the continuation of a trend. He started work as a coal miner in 1958 but left to pursue a career in the Huddersfield Borough Police in 1962, gaining entry at the second attempt. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. Hellawell resigned from his position as Sports Direct chairman in September 2018, on the day of the company's AGM.

He was required to give evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs on 25 March 2015 in relation to alleged poor employment practices at the company – particularly around its widespread use of 'zero-hours contracts' and the dismissal by its wholly owned subsidiary, USC, of 200 warehouse staff in Scotland with only 15 minutes' notice.Claimed to be Britain's then youngest police sergeant at age 23, after passing a fast track examination he was appointed Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983. The tough life of one of Britain’s most senior policemen, who rose through the ranks from poverty and deprivation to the highest office, and went on to become Blair’s ‘Drug Czar’.

In the seventies he served in Northern Ireland, and h became Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983. citation needed] Rising through the ranks, including working in CID, he was appointed Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983, then Deputy Chief Constable of Humberside Police in 1985. He went to school at Kirkburton Secondary Modern School until the age of 15, when he left without a single exam pass, then went to Dewsbury Technical College and Barnsley College of Mining. Here is a man of intellect, probity, progressive ideas and the energy to carry them through, who spent his working life in the two most rigid, conservative and autocratic organisations in the country-the police force and the civil service.

His mother, a club dancer, was always bringing home different men, and would tie him to the table-leg to keep him quiet. When quizzed about then home secretary David Blunkett’s plan to downgrade the classification of cannabis from a Class B drug to Class C, Hellawell said on air that he opposed the policy.