The day Kevin Maxwell was sworn in as a police constable in 2002, something was already wrong. As he stood facing the Union Jack during a ceremony at Sedgley Park training school in Greater Manchester, he noticed a pencil mark on his application form. It was put there by officials to flag the arrest of his older brother in 2001. This turned out to have been a case of mistaken identity. But during the arrest, the police – Maxwell’s colleagues-to-be – had broken his brother’s thumb. Maxwell knew nothing of the incident, but this was the reality of policing for black men like him and his brothers.
Growing up working class and gay in Toxteth, inner-city Liverpool, Maxwell witnessed the riots against the Merseyside Police on his council estate in 1981. He saw police betray his city after the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster, and was only three years younger than Stephen Lawrence when the 18-year-old was murdered in 1993 – a case that led to the Metropolitan Police being described as “institutionally racist” by the 1999 Macpherson Report.
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