‘An Englishman’s home is his castle.’ I’ve always loved that phrase, and when I was in my 30s, single, working hard as an undercover detective, my two-bedroomed flat in Sidcup, South London, was very much my castle.
It was close to the railway station, a decent pub, a parade of shops and restaurants, and I could not have been happier.
When the pub closed, friends would often come back to mine, and the fun would continue into the early hours.
Early one morning I left for work with not the slightest inkling of what lay ahead. The day was unusual in that we only worked eight hours, so I headed towards the pub, hoping to grab a pint and say hello to my mates.
The mobile phone rang, so I pulled over to answer it. That phone call with one of my senior bosses at New Scotland Yard was to change my life forever.
A top-secret report had been stolen from an unmarked police car, which had been left negligently unattended while the driver had gone shopping!
Worse still, this report had detailed my work on an undercover operation that had led to the biggest seizure of heroin ever within mainland Britain.
Catastrophically, the author of this report, the same officer who liked to use covert police vehicles to go to the shops, had idiotically used my real name throughout the report.
A number of very serious criminals were languishing in jail awaiting trial for supplying that huge cache of heroin to me. They had already worked out that I must have been an undercover cop, and they had hatched a plot to murder me.
That assassination plot hadn’t been too much of an inconvenience because they had no way of establishing my real identity, and besides, we took precautions against such scenarios, but now that this report with my real name emblazoned throughout it was in the hands of villainous scumbags, my life was in grave danger.
I was told by my boss in very clear language that I was not allowed to go back to my flat. A week later, with the road blocked off at both ends, colleagues emptied it of all of my possessions, and not long afterwards, I moved into the witness protection programme.
Witness protection changed my life forever. I will never forget that horror phone call - Peter Bleksley | Peter Bleksley
I hated every minute. Living in a false identity in a neighbourhood that I was completely unfamiliar with was not my idea of fun.
I avoided my neighbours like the plague because to engage in any conversation with them meant layering lie upon lie upon lie, just in an effort to avoid an assassin’s bullet to the back of my head.
The Metropolitan Police still wanted me to work and to continue working undercover, which meant plunging into the depths of very serious and organised crime.
At the end of a challenging day spent negotiating with gangsters, I would return to a hideout, not a home, and all of this began to take its toll. I played a part in my own downfall by drinking too much, all in an effort to forget or fathom out my bizarre circumstances.
After two years of this utterly unsustainable existence, everything fell dramatically apart. I had a massive mental health breakdown. I became a danger to myself, and more worryingly, to others. Friends and family hatched a plot to get me into a car, and they drove me straight to the hospital.
I was immediately admitted to a lock-in psychiatric ward, and so began the recovery that has seen me have a 25-year career in the media.
I’ve written books, plays, fronted TV shows, and if you’d like to learn so much more about my less-than-ordinary life, then please come to see my stage show, which I’m currently performing to packed-out venues the length and breadth of the country.
‘The Makings of a Murderer – The Undercover Detective’, is coming to a theatre near you between now and the end of November.
I’ve met countless GBNEWS viewers whenever I’ve done a meet and greet after a show. It has been a source of unbridled joy to answer questions, pose for a photograph, or just have a moan about Starmer and his appalling shambles of a Government!
You can purchase your tickets here, and I’ll look forward to seeing you soon…
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