John Sutherland (part one)
Saturday 18 September 2021
Part One: For over 25 years, John Sutherland served as an officer in the Metropolitan Police, loving every day of his job - the only thing he ever wanted to do - and he rose to the rank of Chief Superintendent, working as Borough Commander in Camden, and then Southwark.
But 6 months into the Southwark job, he had a breakdown, suddenly experiencing overwhelming exhaustion, malevolent anxiety and depression. He puts it down, at least in part, to the relentless wear and tear of policing life and the repeated exposure to extreme trauma, ‘it’s impossible to do this for any length of time and remain unaffected by it’.
He says what got him through it was family, friends and faith: ‘the religion I’d grown up with failed me, but small fragment of faith remained. I discovered something of the mystery of grace, the rumour that I’m loved beyond measure as I am’.