A top humanitarian working on a rescue operation in Sudan has said his time as a police officer in '90s Edinburgh gave him the skills he needed.
Simon Mustard, a leading Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) official, says he honed his abilities while on the beat in the Scottish capital. These days, he's spearheading the development of a £143million humanitarian aid project for countries across East Africa.
Last month, he oversaw a successful operation that rescued more than 2,450 people from Sudan - the longest and biggest evacuation by any Western nation. He's now said dealing with 'real-life Trainspotting characters' in Edinburgh left him ready for anything.
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Simon, 51, spent seven years in the '90s as a policeman here in Edinburgh before joining the diplomatic service. He said: “If you’ve seen the film Trainspotting, I lived Trainspotting.
"Fiction and reality were woven together. I met real-life Begbies, Rentons, Sickboys and Spuds. They are real people. I was bobby on the beat in places like Wester Hailes, Corstorphine and the West End for seven years in the 90s.
“I was driving around in a panda car with blue lights chasing baddies, getting punched in the face in pubs, wrestling burglars, getting bitten by dogs, and all sorts of stuff."
Simon says he dealt with 'all the grim stuff' including murder cases, drug raids and testifying on rape and serious assault cases. He continued: "There were dark moments like cot deaths or dealing with decapitations of pulling folk down with ropes then having to tell their families.
"I’ve delivered a couple of babies in the back of pandas of people who had been arrested, and had people trying to kill me when I’ve been trying to rescue them from their abusive husband.”
The married dad-of-two believes policing gave him the problem solving skills to be calm in any crisis. In Sudan, he says it was all on hands on deck.
He added: "“Policing has undoubtedly helped me in the diplomatic service because you need to learn to work with people from all walks of life and flex your communication skills to know how to speak to different people.
“A lot of what we do in the FCDO is around strategy, devising policy, building multi-layer programmes, learning languages, but the crux of what we do internationally, is we build relationships. We need to get on with people - and that includes people we don’t like. Some people are not just very nice, but to best represent the UK, we still have to engage - these are skills you do as a cop every day.”
The UK Government’s Minister for Development and Africa Andrew Mitchell has just announced a new £143million package of humanitarian support for East Africa - £96million of which is going to tackle drought in the Horn of Africa.
Simon explained: “The Horn of Africa faces one of the most devastating humanitarian crises in the world.
"The catastrophic drought over the last two years has brought unimaginable suffering and millions cannot access adequate water for drinking, cooking and cleaning. Around 43 million people require humanitarian aid due to the devastating effects of conflict and climate change, which has triggered unprecedented droughts following five seasons of failed rains.
“As we’ve sadly seen in Sudan, conflict across East Africa is tearing apart communities, with women and girls bearing the brunt of the violence."
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