15 February (Part 1) - Michael Barnbrook, 25th March 1943 - 14th February 2024
As
you will have guessed if you noticed the black site banner yesterday evening, Michael Barnbrook has died.
Fit and healthy until two years ago and competing internationally as a race
walker until his early seventies he began to complain of breathlessness in July
2021 and was found to have blood clots in various dangerous places including a big one
lodged in his heart. In the early stages he was warned not to move in case he
dislodged it but it became a fixture wreaking all sorts of circulatory damage on his body.
Not one to give up on anything he carried on with life while he could, even
earning the dubious distinction of being thrown out of a hospice for not dying
quickly enough. He was readmitted last week and phoned me on Friday planning my
next visit to see him. But there was no hope of recovery, the blood clots had
damaged his body beyond repair.
Mick was born in Plaistow across the river where he joined the Metropolitan
Police by accident. He accompanied a friend to an interview, but the police
persuaded him to join up instead. He was an Inspector in Bexleyheath until
retirement and lived In Blackfen until 2015.
He twice got close to becoming a Bexley Councillor and he was banned from
asking probing questions when Bexley Council was at the height of its dishonest phase.
Mick was a stickler for honesty and many were his tales of police malpractice
and his interest in politics led to him bringing down local MP Derek Conway;
followed by 16 others some of whom went to prison as a result of Mickְ’s intervention.
He persuaded the police to send a file on Bexley’s Chief Executive to the Crown
Prosecution Service for blatant and evidenced dishonesty. (The CPS lost it.)
The pictures are of him (right side of picture) arresting a streaker at Millwall football
ground when he was in charge of security operations there and with Nigel Farage
outside a Brussels café.
Mick leaves a wife in Ramsgate, a son in Dartford and a Grandson in Thamesmead.
He will be sorely missed by several of us.