HK's last expat cop

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From South China Morning Post

 

 

Cantonese colleagues call him dai lo, meaning “big brother”. A golden statue of the ancient Chinese god Guan Yu stands tall on his office desk.

 

No expat lives as a local like Timothy Worrall – the youngest serving foreign police officer in Hong Kong. Worrall is proud to call the city home, and it is the place he plans to retire.

 

“Where else can you go for siu yeh [late night meals] and wonton min [wonton noodles] at 11pm?” says the 44-year-old British superintendent from the force’s small boat division.

 

He is expected to be the last foreign officer to retire from Hong Kong’s police force, 10 years from now – a milestone that will mark the end of the era of expatriate officers in the 173-year history of the force.

 

“I was born in Hong Kong. But after going to boarding school and university in the UK, I applied from the UK to join the Hong Kong force in 1994,” Worrall says. “I was very lucky to get in as overseas recruitment was ending.”

 

Today, Worrall has fulfilled his dream and has worked for all the police units he had targeted. Over the years he has been involved in many high-profile police operations, from dealing with the disturbances in 1996 at the Whitehead refugee detention centre, to repatriation of refugees to Vietnam, chasing smugglers in the dark of night, and even going to sea in a typhoon. He has also hosted the police force’s English television programme, Police Report.

 

When Hong Kong transformed from a British colony to a Chinese special administrative region in 1997, the younger Worrall was working in the Emergency Unit. When the clock struck midnight on July 1, he removed his silver Royal Hong Kong Police badges, which featured opium boats in Victoria Harbour, and attached the shiny insignia of the new Hong Kong, before getting straight back on patrol.

 

Continues with pics and video

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2118472/no-change-1997-its-still-about-providing-best-service-says