Manchester police chief who became known as “God’s cop”
James Anderton 1932-2022
James Anderton was just 44 when he became the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police – England’s largest provincial police force – with 7,000 officers under his command. He was Britain’s youngest chief constable and served in that role for 15 years; and yet it is as “God’s cop” that he will be remembered, said The Guardian. A one-time Methodist lay preacher who later converted to Catholicism, Anderton claimed to be on a divine mission; and at the height of the Aids crisis in 1986, his remarks about gay people “swirling around in a cesspit of their own making” made him “the most controversial police officer in Britain”. Such pronouncements caused consternation at the Home Office. And yet Anderton made no effort to temper his words, said The Times. He dismissed his critics as “moral lepers” and “subversives”; and called for violent offenders to be flogged until they “beg for mercy”. He implied in a radio interview that he had a hotline to God; and on another occasion, when facing hostile questions from local councillors, he paused for effect, then said: “I’m beginning to feel what Christ must have felt before his crucifixion.”
Cyril James Anderton was born in Wigan, and brought up in a two-up, two-down pit cottage with a shared outside lavatory. His father was a coal miner and his mother worked in a factory. “Religion was the dominant force in the Anderton household”; there were Bible readings every day at home, and Sundays were a “procession of church services”. Anderton won a scholarship to Wigan Grammar School, said The Daily Telegraph, where he was bullied for refusing to discuss girls or indulge in illegal smoking. Leaving school, he worked for the National Coal Board before doing National Service with the Royal Military Police. He was picked on there, too – dragged under a shower fully dressed, and stripped and covered in boot polish (his nickname was Spit, short for “spit and polish”). Anderton, however, regarded these events as tests of his faith, and continued to pray morning and night in the barrack room.
Having left the Army with the remarkably high rank of company sergeant-major, he joined the Manchester police aged 21, and spent four years walking the beat in Moss Side – an area then rife with prostitution and illegal gambling dens. His colleagues called him “Bible Jim”. When he became chief constable in 1976, one of his first campaigns was a crackdown on pornography that led to thousands of magazines being seized from newsagents and bookshops. He warned rugby teams not to play on the sabbath, claiming that it was a violation of the Sunday Observance Act; he had a prayer room installed next to his office, in which he regularly asked God to give him the strength “to smite the devil from the streets”; and he made sure the members of his personal staff shared his moral outlook. “You won’t find any heathens or libertines there,” noted one officer.
There were those who questioned whether he was capable of objective policing, but Margaret Thatcher backed him. He was popular with the rank and file; and in Manchester, his robust methods had some public support. Yet many of his admirers were dismayed by his role in the Stalker affair. John Stalker, his deputy, had been asked to lead an inquiry into allegations that the British Army and the RUC had adopted a “shoot to kill” policy in Northern Ireland – but just as he seemed to be getting somewhere, Stalker was suddenly suspended from duty, and put under investigation over his links to a Manchester businessman, said The Guardian. It was widely believed that Anderton had treated him “shabbily”. In retirement, Anderton gave his time to numerous youth clubs and other charities. He also wrote poetry. He had married his wife Joan in 1955; she and their daughter survive him.