Neil Basu QPM served 30 years in the Metropolitan Police Service rising from a Battersea Beat Bobby in 1992 to Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations, and the UK’s head of Counter Terrorism Policing in 2018. He worked with MI5 in response to 12 terrorist attacks, 29 foiled plots and the arrest of over 600 terrorists. In 2021 he led policing’s most senior leadership programme and retired in November 2022.

Awarded the Queens Policing Medal in 2016 and an honorary Doctor of Laws at Staffordshire University in 2022, he now advises the private, public and political sectors on policing, criminal justice, national security, leadership and diversity. Who’s Who describes his passions as ‘Music, Movies and Motors,’ and these days he unwinds through long motorcycle rides, family dinners and lifting heavy weights. In April 2025 he released a memoir entitled ‘Turmoil - 30 years of policing, politics and prejudice.’

His book, Turmoil, tracks a 30 year career as a detective investigating anti-corruption, homicide, organised crime and terrorism. His career was bookended by the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and Basu does not shy away from the consequences of that crime and policing’s continued refusal to acknowledge enduring institutional racism and other prejudice. He explains how policing would be more effective if it finally admitted it, apologised and asked those affected communities it has over-policed and under-protected to help make it better. In the end he describes it as a love letter to policing – albeit from an angry lover. He clearly loves the profession the police ironically call The Job – because it is so much more than that. It was clearly his vocation – a calling that affected him physically and mentally and take a terrible toll on his family. To read this unflinching account of life in Blue is to understand his mission, his calling and the human being behind the badge.

Knowing that at some point crime touches all our lives and even more importantly that we want to know why, he launched the Podcast ‘The Crime Agents’ co-hosting with LBC Crime Correspondent Andy Hughes. With Andy’s two decades as a crime correspondent reporting on the biggest criminal cases, and Neil’s thirty year career investigating them, it’s a compelling listen.