Chris McKeogh visited MIRTH for a third time in 8 years to share insights into his life, faith and career.
Today Chris provides consultancy advice to a range of governments including the UK and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on how to develop policing and manage high level risks including terrorism. During a fascinating talk Chris explained why it was so unlikely that he would have ever reached such senior positions of trust and how a “Road to Damascus” moment was so critical on this journey.
Chris explained that his father had escaped an abusive family upbringing in Eire and come to England as a teenager. Working in London before joining the British Army and whilst based in Germany married a young German girl. Chris was born in 1966 and three years later the family was completed by the arrival of a sister. After moving back to England the marriage went from bad to worse with parents splitting when the children were young. Once separated the children lived with the mother suffering both poverty and abuse until being thrown out to fend for themselves at the ages of 14 and 11.
At the age of 16 Chris gained a fistful of O Levels and careers advice was to become either a Tarmac spreading supervisor or a police cadet. Luckily Chris chose the later and then at 18 became a police officer. The following year he met Helen a life long Christian and six years later they were married. Assigned to cover some of the toughest and most deprived areas of Birmingham Chris was soon exposed to major crime including murder scenes. After 5 years on the front line in uniform a transfer to undercover work for a similar period of time was a tough grounding.
A pivotal point came in 2001. Then a Detective Seargent with a wife, two young boys and studying part time for a law degree Chris started experiencing a dark dream that would repeat on many nights. The dream included Chris being chased across rough fields by a wolf before entering and climbing a tower; never reaching the top before he would wake from the nightmare. That summer the family visited family in Brighton and attended a Church run by Chris’s brother in law. During the service in a time of prayer the dream returned but this time Chris felt a hand on his shoulder and a voice telling him to let it go. Suddenly he reached the top of the tower and emerged into bright daylight. It was like scales falling from his eyes and he was at peace. Chris was Baptised in the sea at Brighton a month later.
Since then Chris has held a strong Christian faith first attending an Alpha course before leading them. In addition Chris and Helen have run home groups for many years, attended and been active in many church events.
So how did this impact on Chris’s police career? Well in the six and half years after becoming a Christian Chris was promoted from Detective Seargent to Inspector, Detective Inspector, Super Intendent to Chief Super Intendent and Commander. By far the fastest promotion record in West Midlands Police. Chris was then in charge of over 1800 people covering Birmingham. Chris went on to explain that he developed key relationships across the various ethnic and religious communities in the city. These relationships helped him manage and defuse the riots in Birmingham.
Chris went on to work at the National Crime Agency in London where they were combating the most dangerous criminals that posed risk to the UK through Drugs, human trafficking, modern day slavery and money laundering. A new position at the Charity Commision followed. With over 750,000 people working for 80,000 charitable organisations there is scope for abuse. This ranges from those trying to gain access to children or oversees workers taking advantage of women to moving money to terrorists. Chris worked on connecting this sector to Police, MI5, GCHQ and other government departments to reduce these instances so that the good work of the vast majority can go on.
Retiring from full time roles in 2020 Chris continues to be guided by faith and Christian values in helping governments manage risk.
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