The Moment I Realised I Wanted to Write a Book…


I’d love to say there was one particular moment when I realised I wanted to write a book.

The truth is, it wasn’t a moment - it was an accumulation.

By the time I sat down to write Care & Control, I’d been a police officer for seven years and a child protection social worker for eight years before that. Going further back, to 2007, I was working with boys and young men vulnerable to child sexual exploitation, as well as in residential children’s homes.

Across all of those roles, one thought kept surfacing:

You should write some of this down.

Scenes would play in my head at random times, like TikTok reels with no context. I remember seeing a door being broken down to rescue a child in danger whilst I was cleaning my bathroom (years before Care & Control). That little snapshot became Louis kicking in a door to get to Connor.

Another turning point came in 2012, when I completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Forensic Psychology and Behavioural Analysis, focused on assessing and managing individuals who had committed sexual offences. Studying under Dr Joe Sullivan, a leading forensic psychologist, deepened my understanding of what drives harmful behaviour. I started to think about my villain: not an abstract monster but someone nuanced and chillingly human.

I also wanted to throw a spotlight on the complexities of safeguarding vulnerable people, and the people working on the front line. I never cease to be amazed at the bravery, resilience and humility of the people I work with. Naturally, I wanted this to be the bedrock of my central characters.

Then, in 2024, after years of focusing on my career, I started to seriously consider writing.

The final nudge came through collaborating with Tony Watts on his novel Mary McShane: Psychic Detective. The creative process was exciting, bringing me closer to the idea of beginning my own writing journey.

In March 2024, I sat down at my laptop and started writing.

Two weeks later, the first draft of Care & Control was done - but in reality, it had been years in the making. The process itself was intense, gruelling, but utterly addictive.

I don’t think I fully believed I’d written a book until I held the proof copy in my hands for the first time.

What I hadn’t anticipated was what would come afterwards.

The characters didn’t stop when I finished writing. They stayed with me. Their stories didn’t feel complete. If anything, finishing the book only made it clearer how much more there was to explore - particularly within the constantly evolving worlds of policing and social work.

So, when was the moment I realised I wanted to write a book? What I’ve come to realise is that writing isn’t separate from the work I’ve done - it’s an extension of it.

People stay with you. Decisions stay with you. Questions don’t always have clean answers.

Writing is simply how I make sense of them.