JOHN SUTHERLAND: Crossing the line.

In the April of 2013 my guest suffered a traumatic mental breakdown that would cut short his career as a police officer. He chose to write about that experience and in 2017 his book "Blue, a memoire: Keeping the peace and falling to pieces" was published. Searingly honest, sharing police work in a way perhaps no one has ever done before and the toll that it took on him, it quickly became a best seller. He became somewhat of a celebrity within the policing and wellbeing world and was soon in demand as both a public speaker and commentator both on radio and television. He regularly travels to other police forces across the country and contributes to the police wellbeing debate. More recently he has highlighted the effects of the many years of cuts to policing budgets and how it affected the police ability to tackle crime in the 21st century.  John Sutherland is in reflective mood as we discuss his own policing experience and his new book due out in May this year "Crossing the line".