Churchill + Sten

[GeeRam]

I know the same policy existed in the Mets and other major forces, and it was only when ex service people intervened and said we must stop giving guns out willy nilly to basically untrained officers, that the Home Office agreed to put control on every force.

These were the days, that if a provincial force had a murder, a Detective Superintendent was sent out from New Scotland Yard to assist the force with the investigation.......yes its fact and unbelievable!!

Yep, I can remember the last time it happened within the Met., in the aftermath of the 3 coppers being shot in Braybrook Steet, and in the subsequent search for Harry Roberts. I did think though that in the Met it was only the known ex-servicemen that were issued, although back in 1966, there weren't a huge number serving then that hadn't seen service, given National Service had only ended 5 years earlier.
My old man was a dog handler at the time and a WW2 vet, and when they were using the dog section to search a lot of the fields/farmland out to the west and north-west of the Met district, searching for Roberts, Dad was issued with one of the old Webley's, and I can remember as a wide eyed kid, him bring it home on a few nights much to my Mum's astonishment. It was the only time my old man carried an issued firearm during his 30 years of Met service.
It was as a result of Braybrook St, that prompted the Met to create a specialist firearms unit.