I hope they will try to let people know that

I hope they will try to let people know that.”He does add that, since he was interviewed in the police newspaper The Job, he has had several emails from officers in the Met with similar backgrounds. “Anyone currently living the life of a traveller will probably be very reluctant [to join the police],” he admits. “They’ll have very negative experiences of their contact with the police whether they were in the right or the wrong. He put it on his head and his face took on this really stern look. He pointed at the floor and said: ‘Put the fire out and move on!’ That’s what a police officer was to him.”It is this attitude that PC Dean aims to change But he realises it will be a slow journey.

“I went to visit my great granddad just after I joined the police I showed him my brand new, shiny helmet. PC Dean’s mother was born into a large Gypsy family that, like many, settled during the Second World War. As a child he would help his travelling relations crop picking.”At family weddings and funerals I get a bit of teasing about my job, but nobody took it badly,” he says. Relations between the authorities and travellers have been particularly tense in recent months.PC Dean, a breeding manager at Keston dog training centre in Kent, is a proud member of a Romany family.

I didn’t see what it could achieve for me.”PC Dean would like the Home Office to conduct a recruitment drive among travelling communities. He claims that some in the force still refuse to accept that Gypsies are a racial minority.He voiced his criticisms as the Cambridgeshire force, which covers one of the country’s largest concentrations of Gypsies, launched a £10,000 community relations initiative called Del Gavvers Pukker Cheerus – Romany for “give the police a chance”. Free CDs tell Gypsies and travellers what steps to take if they are feeling harassed. A police car drove by as close as possible, which was very likely to spook the horse, and they started shouting abuse It was plainly just police officers being prejudiced I didn’t tell them I am a police officer too. Gypsies are the only ethnic minority it is still acceptable to be racist about.”He was also racially abused during another incident “My father and I were breaking a horse into harness. “Two officers came over and became extremely aggressive,” he said.