FEATURE: One of the Met's longest serving female officers looks back on 40 years in the job

Lewisham Police Constable Karen Giles was armed with a handbag, a radio and a cape when she began her career in Plumstead at just 18 years old.

The 58-year-old, who started in Plumstead and Woolwich in 1976, was recently presented with the prestigious lifetime achievement award from the British Association for Women in Policing.

After four years working in the Greenwich borough she transferred to Peckham and then Lewisham where she has worked in the response team for the past 18 years.

Describing life as a policewoman in the mid ‘70s she said it was “so completely different” to today, from the lack of modern technology to the tunic uniforms.

Karen Giles has been awarded a lifetime achievement award from the British Association for Women in Policing.

When she began only the male officers had truncheons, until the women were given handbag sized versions, but PC Giles said it was all “just normal” at the time.

Despite the fact that no-one had their own handcuffs, she said an “enormous amount of work got done”.

She added: “I think we actually helped and policed more on a person to person basis.”

PC Giles said one of the major differences to today is the amount of time spent on foot, as she recalled when she got lost in Greenwich and was forced to ask for directions to the police station.

“I was 18 so people probably looked at me and thought I was a bit of a twit,” she told News Shopper.

“I was so young and I’d never been to London before.”

She joined the force during one of the Met’s recruitment drives, which saw classes of 60 people begin training each week – 25 of whom were women in PC Giles’ group.

The separate “women’s department” of policing was only fully integrated into the Met a few years earlier in 1973, the year before equal pay between male and female officers was enforced.

Karen Giles joined the police at just 18 years old.

When she moved to London on a wage of £150 per month, PC Giles lived locally in a section house where she paid just £1.50 a month on her accommodation.

In her 40 years policing south east London PC Giles has witnessed a lot, from patrolling the streets after the Brixton riots in the early 1980s to the moment a man lost his leg when an IRA bomb exploded in his car in Dulwich.

Over her career she said the type of crime that exists in London has remained largely unchanged, comparing the gang warfare of the 21st century to the activities of the Krays and the Richardsons.

“It’s a different sort of gang,” she said.

“The gang issue has been going on for years and years, it’s not a new thing at all.”

At the heart of it all, PC Giles believes people, their goals and aspirations are still the same as they were in the 1970s – a decent school for their children, somewhere to live, food on the table and the occasional holiday.

“Fundamentally people want the same thing in life,” she said.

With no plans to leave the force, PC Giles said a real belief in what the police do is what has kept her motivated for the past 40 years.

“I believe we’re the greatest force for good as far as public services,” she said.

“I think nationally we do an astonishing amount of good work which goes unrecognised.”

And PC Giles’ love for the job runs in the family, with her daughter following in her footsteps having spent the last 8 years as a police officer in Peckham.