PC Steve Dean, the breeding manager at Keston dog training centre, is proud of his Romany heritage, but feels gypsies are not always treated with the same respect as other sections of the community.

He said: “There is still an element of police officers who do not see gypsies as genuine ethnic minority groups. The only way that can be countered is for police officers to have more positive interaction with travelling people.

“There is mistrust on both sides.”

Connecting

A major step, PC Dean said, would be to recruit more officers from gypsy and traveller backgrounds.

He said: “It would be nice to see more people from travelling backgrounds becoming police officers or PCSOs. I really do not see any reason why they should not be.

“They can provide a bridge which is not there at the moment.”

As a uniformed officer, PC Dean has never experienced prejudice from either the police or the gypsy and traveller community, but his background has given him unique insights.

He said: “I have seen it from both sides. I have been in incidents as a police officer with members of the travelling community who have behaved appallingly.

“But at the gypsy Appleby fair four years ago I was treated awfully by a serving police officer who thought I was just a member of the travelling community.”

PC Dean said the main experience gypsies and travellers have of the police is being moved off sites.

He said: “My great granddad was in his 90s and I went to visit him when I joined the police. I took my helmet with me and I handed it to him. He put it on and the first thing he did was say ‘put the fire out and move’.”

PC Dean’s mother is from a gypsy family, but like many gypsy families, they settled during World War II, though the Romany influence has always been strong in their lives.

His involvement with the police began when he joined the cadets aged 16 and he joined the Met two years later.