Category: Jeanmiguel Uva

First edition of the New Stars competition comes to an end

2/15/2017

Lovre Marušić, Grand Prize winner of the first edition of New Stars Competion // Ph: Lovre Marušić.

As official media partners of the competition, THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE had the opportunity to chat with the Grand Prize winner Lovre Marušić about his profile, career and dreams as a young musician

Jeanmiguel Uva
Deputy Editor-in-Chief

After one month of applications and 43 of the most talented young musicians, the New Stars International Music Competition has successfully come to an end. The competition envisaged by University of Manchester student Itamar Rashkovsky and co-founder Dmitry Daniel Askerov aimed to alleviate many of the difficulties young musicians find when participating in these competitions.

By making the application system online and anonymised, the founders were committed to transparency and political fairness— unlike any other competition offered to musicians to date. Keyboard and string players were able to enter the contest by submitting nothing more than a video clip. Potential prejudice based on age or nationality, for example, was, therefore, ruled out. The adjudicating system is also unprecedented in the world of international music competitions. All the voting of the core jury will be published online and viewable to the public. The competition jury was comprised of a large range of award winning musicians from the UK, China, Russia, Germany, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Albania, Slovenia, Lithuania and Finland.

As official media partners of the competition, THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE had the opportunity to chat with the Grand Prize winner Lovre Marušić about his profile, career and dreams as a young musician. We bring you the story of this talented young pianist and what the future awaits for him.

Born and raised in the picturesque town Omiš— just off the Dalmatian coast of Croatia—, Lovre told us about the importance of his supporting parents and his sister Ivana, who also plays the piano. After finishing elementary school, Lovre decided followed his musical dream by moving to the renowned Tschaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory where he studied from 2006 to 2011. After completing his studies in Russia, he came back to Croatia where he continued his musical formation at Zagreb, finally finishing his Master’s degree at the Music Academy.

When talking about the competition, Lovre told TMM about the high parameters New Stars set: “The level of competition was really high. I would say even higher than usual, because when you go to a normal competition, you travel, you are sometimes really not in good mood do perform in your best way […]. In this competition everybody sent them the best recordings they have at this moment so automatically the level was higher.”

As the Grand Prize winner, Lovre will enjoy a different range of prizes ranging from free musical consultancy, interviews with musical publications, a photo-shoot and the opportunity to be part of the jury of the second series of the New Stars International Music competition.

Looking at the future, Lovre tells us that his principal objective is always to be the best and continue growing as a pianist. He is still looking for professional opportunities that will allow him showing his potential. With a flirt of idealism proper of a musician, when asked about what suggestions he could give to younger musicians he told us: “Believe in your heart and your intuition”. Finding yourself in the music and enjoying the powerful energy it produces is one of the keys for success, he argues.

From THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE, we wish to congratulate him and celebrate this international competition envisaged at the very centre of The University of Manchester. We wish to see the second edition coming as successful as the first version went and will bring you further developments. TMM

Lovre Marušić is currently studying at Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar in Grigory Gruzman's class.

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"Nobody was there from my family when I became chancellor"

5/30/2016

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Lemn Sissay MBE, globally acclaimed poet and chancellor of The University of Manchester // Ph: Aida Muluneh

Interview Against all the odds, the most loved poet in Manchester is now chancellor of The University of Manchester. We spoke to Lemn Sissay about the city, the new chancellorship and what it took for him to get to where he is today

António Rolo Duarte
Editor-in-Chief
Jeanmiguel Uva
Deputy Editor-in-Chief

The one thing that Lemn Sissay cannot hide, is that he is a busy guy. One need only follow him on Twitter to see that the new chancellor of The University of Manchester is constantly jumping from cocktail to guest lecture, award ceremony to television programme. His workload has even made him stop “morning tweets” an initiative which he had had for almost four years, where he wrote a tweet every day exploring the feelings that the morning had called upon him.

And yet when we meet him on a cold day a few weeks back and ask how long he has for our interview, he says that we can have as long as we want. He has cleared his schedule for the rest of the day and is keen to share with us the memories, opinions and experiences of what has been quite an unconventional life, and an even odder climb to the chancellorship – Sissay himself never attended university in the first place.

He might never have been a university student but Lemn Sissay has always learned from those around him. He is as humble as he is great. This is a chancellor who might have photos with the Queen, but who does not refuse a selfie with a student. A chancellor who is much more than just a figure with a fancy title. Lemn Sissay is one of us. And now we are part of him.

At the start of the interview, his unmistakable smile leads the way to an easy-flowing conversation. We are not even seated, let alone asking questions, and Lemn Sissay is already talking as if we have known each other for years. “You better start recording,” he says, as we settle at the bar of a hotel just off Piccadilly Gardens.

We do as he orders. With our voice recorders out, the chancellor is already midway through a fascinating argument about migration. We have no idea where it came from, but we definitly do not want to interrupt.

(...)
You see, we are a migrating species by nature, we are all migrants. My homes are in different places. My spirit is in Manchester, in London, in New York, in Addis Ababa. And education helps a person to migrate. I think that’s actually at the heart of who we are. Parents never say to their children, oh don’t go anywhere. They say, go out into the world, migrate!

Expand your horizons, right?
Expand your horizons! If that’s not a celebration of migration, then what is? It was Professor Brian Cox who said that inspiration is economically quantifiable. It is a beautiful thing. What he was saying is that if people were not inspired by space, then governments would not give money to it. It is because humanity is inspired by the idea of space that they can spend so much money on the exploration of space. And what is the exploration of space other than the idea of mass migration? The space man is a migrant! He is populating the moon.

And they are planning on going to Mars soon.
Absolutely. As far as we go, we will consistently want to go further, because it is in our nature. And that is why I think that anti-migration is kind of anti-nature. In every country where a person is anti-immigrant it throws up all kinds of anti-humane behaviour. When the opposite happens, it throws up humane behaviour, incredible people helping other people. It shows the worst and the best in people.

Brian Cox’s idea of inspiration being quantifiable links very much to that slogan of yours, “inspire and be inspired”. You have certainly inspired many people with your writing. Was that always an aspiration of yours?
I always wanted to be a poet. I always knew that from the age of 12 or 13, when I went into the children’s homes. For some reason it was what I wanted to do. I believed in what I did, and I did what I believed. There was no other option.

Was it a way to survival, perhaps?
The most important thing to me was to live, not to survive. I didn’t want to be somebody who always needed to have a fire to put out. I just have a lot to say. A lot of interesting stuff happened to me and I really needed to speak it. Because I felt like I had been experimented on for 18 years. So I left the experiment, I left the laboratory, and I was like: listen folks, something has happened here, there is a bigger story.

The most important thing to me was to live, not to survive. I didn't want to be somebody who always needed to have a fire to put out.

So could you tell us a bit about those 18 years that you felt you were experimented on? I know you were split from your Ethiopian mother when she came to study in England…
Yes, when I was a child, my mother approached a social worker and asked to have me fostered for a short period of time. But the social worker had no intention of giving me back to her and he didn’t tell her. He gave me to foster parents and he said: treat this as an adoption.

Why would he do that?
To know why that happened, you have to look at the late 1960s and the situation in Britain for single pregnant women. There was a practice of children being adopted if they were with a woman who didn’t have a husband. And essentially this story is about women, it is about women’s rights and it is about the disempowerment of women in the late sixties. So the social worker had no intention of giving me back to my mother because society then saw my mother as a bad person, just because she was pregnant and without a husband. That’s why this entire story occurred.

So what happened after you were given to foster parents?
I was then held with my foster parents who told me that they were my mom and dad forever. I was held with them for twelve years, and I thought I was going to be with them forever. But then they put me into children’s homes. They held me in different children’s homes until I was 17 and then they released me in the care system, with no family. It was then that I realized how important family is as you grow in independence. As any of us grow in independence, we grow seemingly away from our family and we become what we think of as independent. But we are only independent with a point of reference to look back at. So we can say “I am not part of you as a family, I am now an independent human being”, whereas actually, we are totally relative to them. And I didn’t have that.

Did you ever get to know your real family?
When I was 18, the social worker gave me letters and told me that somebody did love me. He gave me letters from my file, letters of my mother pleading for me back to the social worker. He said “somebody did love you, she wanted you back”. So at 18, when my friends were going to university, I began searching for my family. Using the address on that letter the social worker gave me, after about three years, I found my mother. She worked for the United Nations in the Gambia.

How was it for you meeting the mother who you had never met?
It is one of the most unnatural sentences, “are you my mother?” Those words don’t really go together, they shouldn’t really go together. It was difficult for her. Somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow, I realised that it was about her story. She came to England to study, that’s all. She was pregnant. Women get pregnant, that’s what happens. But they don’t expect to be punished for getting pregnant.

In your Ted talk, you said that Margaret Thatcher was your mother when you were in foster care. How did you feel about that when you were in foster care and how to you feel about that now?
Things were done to me that were very wrong. I am seeking redress presently for things that happened to me when I was under the care of the government.

Do you resent your time in foster care?
No, no! I don’t. I think people try as hard as they can. I think one of the greatest things a human being can do is to foster, or to adopt. And I think that when people do mistakes in fostering, they are trying. Bitterness rots the vessel that carries it. I don’t resent what happened to me, but I do want it to be recognized.

So do you think that there are no “good” and “bad” people?
Well, Hitler did his best. If you suffered at the hands of Hitler, do you forgive? This is not a question for me, this is a question mainly for the Jewish community, to whom unspeakable things happened. Does a person forgive? That’s your internal spirit, it is your choice as to whether you do that or not.

But is forgiveness is important?
For me, ultimately forgiveness was important for the people who did me wrong as a child; who took away my mother from me and my father, who took me away from my family, put me into children’s homes, took away the entire narrative of my family life, took away my education, took away the possibility of going to university. So for me yes, forgiveness is important. But I don’t say that everybody has to do that.

Hardys Well, Wilmslow Road. Lemn Sissay's poems adorn the walls of Manchester // Ph: TMM

Our editors with the man himself // Ph: TMM

In an interview some time ago, you said that your favourite character was Lisbeth Salander, from The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, because of her pursuit of justice. What is the kind of justice that you pursue?
I would like equality to be a practice in life. But I think the most obvious place where I pursue justice is where a child who was looked after by the state receives honest care from the state. When I say honest care I mean the state is the parent of the child who is in its care, either in foster care or children’s homes or whatever. And I would hope that that child would receive the best education, the best psychotherapeutic, psychological and home care from the state.

We know that there were many obstacles to that kind of justice in your case. Some of them are... how shall I put it? A bit odd. For example, I saw somewhere that your name changed a couple of times during the period you were in foster care. Were you actually called Norman at one point?
Norman Mark Greenwood, yes! [laughs] Norman was the name of the social worker, he named me after himself. Mark was the name of the foster parents, that’s in the Bible. And their last name was Greenwood. And that was never my legal name. When I was 18, I was given my birth certificate and that’s where it said my name, Lemn Sissay.

And you took it.
Yes, I took my name. People thought I was kind of crazy.

Why? And why did your name matter to you?
All our names matter, man. You grow to love your name because you become who you are, you grow to own your name. Lemn, in Ethiopia, means the question “why?” It is a very unusual name to have in Ethiopia. Who is called why? But to think that my name is Lemn and that I was always a poet is just perfect. I fit my name. Our names are celebrations of who we are as human beings.

Do you remember your time as a student? I am curious about what it would be to have Lemn Sissay as a classmate in school…
I went to school in Lancashire, close to the mines. Teachers loved me but they realized that what was going on in my life would get in the way. A lot of teachers in school will say: these children spend longer with me than they do with their parents. To someone who is in children’s homes, that means that the teacher and the school environment is more like family than their home environment. So I really loved school. But I loved it from the perspective of society, of meeting people. I could smell family on other people.

Is there any particular person from school that you can remember?
Oh yeah! A bald, rugby-playing, socialist, beer-drinking English teacher called Mr Unsworth. He was really inspiring to me. He spent time with me, he gave me books and he read my poetry as well. And so I invited him to the launch of the chancellorship and he came, he was in the audience.

So you kept in contact in some way?
I came back to him. He contacted me after seeing me in a newspaper. And so we’ve regained a relationship. Part of the reason to be in the newspaper for me in my early career was very much to say I am alive. Because I didn’t have family, this was a place where somebody could say, “oh he is alive, he has lived, and he was there at that time”. Because all a family is, is a group of people proving that each other exist.

So even after you found your mother, for you there still wasn’t a family?
I have tried to keep in contact with her but I don’t know her, you see, I don’t know her. I don’t have a family. I don’t have, I just don’t have it. I just acknowledge that there isn’t. Nobody was there from my family when I became chancellor.

You could look at my life and ask: how far has that man gone? How far has he come from where he was? And if you want to go as far as he has, that is the place to do it, The University of Manchester.

Truth is, you did become chancellor. You are the chancellor of The University of Manchester. One of the most interesting aspects of that is perhaps the fact that you never even attended university. So is this also a message that university isn’t everything, that great careers and great lives can be achieved without going to university like you did?
Well, I didn’t have a choice. From what I know, given the choice, I would have done it. You know, I don’t think it would have taken anything away from me. I think it would have just added. So I’m not saying that you don’t need a university education, look at me. I’m saying that you deserve a choice.

How does a poet who never had that kind of opportunities beat Peter Mandelson, one of the most senior British politicians of the twenty-first century in this country, in an election for a university chancellorship?
What is really interesting about the election is that leading up to it, I was on national radio and said that Manchester is the greatest place on earth. A few weeks before that, I gave a keynote address in the Manchester Town Hall in front of 500 lecturers. Also, I was offered a doctorate from the university, from Nancy Rothwell, a year earlier. None of this was connected to the election, all of this had been booked 4 months, 8 months before. But all of these things proved that I was engaged with Manchester, and particularly with the university and with education in general. So I said to myself: why not, why shouldn’t I do it? And you could look at my life and ask: how far has that man gone? How far has he come from where he was? And if you want to go as far as he has, that is the place to do it, The University of Manchester, and Manchester as a city.

You got the chancellorship of The University of Manchester, and Peter Mandelson went up Oxford Road to our neighbours at the Manchester Metropolitan University, settling as chancellor there.
That says to me one really interesting thing: is that Manchester is the place to be. When a politician such as Peter Mandelson is so determined to contribute to the betterment of Manchester by going for two chancellorships, then that tells me that something really good is happening in Manchester. The city has grown a lot for the past 25 or 30 years, definitely for the better. It is more mixed now and there are more people from different parts of the world, on the streets and in the cafes and restaurants. Diversity is really good for Manchester. The future of Manchester is quite wonderful.

One of the mottos of the city is “we do things differently around here”…
Yes, and we have to do that. We have to do that not in relation to London, but in relation to who we are. If I’m always looking at you and saying, “oh, one day I will be better than you”, I’m empowering you. And I think Manchester doesn’t need to do that. It is an incredible city.

Is Manchester an English city or an international city?
I think it is a big international city, without a doubt. I travel around the world as a writer and everybody knows Manchester. Manchester United, the football team, is a great promoter of the city. And I see the university right at the forefront of the story of Manchester. It would be nice for more people to be aware of the role of the university in the making of Manchester. The cultural nature of the city is not Oasis, it is not Stone Roses, it is not Tony Wilson even. It is what the university is doing. It is science and it is also the artists. The science and the artists are incredible promoters of the university and the city. Again, it is the diversity that is really inspiring.

Is that Manchester’s biggest strength?
Yes, possibly.

What is its biggest weakness?
Nostalgia. We are an innovative, forward-thinking city and we need to be that. Nostalgia can sometimes be this sort of anchor that wants us not to change.

We could almost say that a question about weaknesses would not apply to you. You are one of the most acclaimed British writers alive. You were the official poet of the London Olympics, you have performed at hundreds of important places worldwide and you even have your poems printed in public walls across Manchester. Despite never having gone to university, you are now chancellor of one of the greatest universities in the country. Your successes are countless. But what would you say has been your biggest failure in life?
The thing that comes to mind is not having children. Because I’ve spent a lot of my time searching for my family and I said to myself that I wouldn’t have children until I found them all. I don’t think it is a failure but I could have popped a couple out on the way.

Would you consider adopting?
Yes. [silence] Yes, I would.

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Music without borders

5/6/2016

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The music alone will count in this international competition // Ph: Rures/ Flickr

Music A student from The University of Manchester has started an innovative classical music project. The New Stars International Music Competition hopes to bring impartiality and justice in evaluating young musicians around the world

Jeanmiguel Uva
Deputy Editor-in-Chief

A politics student from The University Manchester has started an innovative international project with the goal of making music apolitical. The New Stars International Music Competition, a new initiative that seeks to ameliorate the negative aspects of current international competitions of classical music, launches this week. The competition will be presented by the Crescendo International Music Festival in Florida and is a new opportunity for gifted musicians from all over the world over to showcase their talents on the international stage.

“Our core mission is to advance the careers of talented artists,” said Itamar Rashkovsky, the British-Israeli award winning violinist and Politics and International Relations student who co-founded the project, speaking exclusively to THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE. “Often, competitions aren't that beneficial to one's career. The prize money is disposable and the concert opportunities are narrow. We seek to change this. Instead of offering prize money, this competition offers other prizes that are directly beneficial to the career and exposure of the artist. These prizes will include career management, consultancy, press releases, concerto opportunities, recital opportunities and scholarships to participate and perform in international music festivals.”

The concept for the competition was conceived by Itamar and co-founder Dmitry Daniel Askerov, an award winning Russian-Israeli violinist, during their participation in the 2013 Kloster Schoental International Violin Competition in Germany. The pair were discussing some of the difficulties involved in international competitions and a key concern was the financial risk of funding travel and accommodation just in order to be able to compete.

“For us, New Stars is much more than just a competition,” said Dmitry. “New Stars gives an opportunity for young and talented musicians to be seen all over the world. By making our competition online, we aim to give an opportunity for participants who can’t afford to travel around the globe to display their abilities. I sincerely believe that this initiative will uncover hidden musical talents from across the globe.”

The oficial logo of the competition // Ph: New Stars

Itamar Rashkovsky // Ph: Personal archive

The project has declared an unprecedented commitment to transparency and political fairness which makes it unlike any other competition offered to musicians to date. Keyboard and string players will be able to enter the competition by submitting nothing more than a video clip. Potential prejudice based on age or nationality, for example, will therefore be ruled out. The adjudicating system is also unprecedented in the world of international music competitions. All the voting of the core jury will be published online and viewable to the public.

"Though, of course, music is not entirely objective, transparency in adjudication can bring rhyme and reason to all the madness,” said Canadian pianist Ryan Hum, one of the jury members, who is also a student at The University of Manchester. “Transparency in jury votes rightfully acknowledges the subjectivity inherent in art, while at the same time trying to fairly commend and foster excellence.”

The core international jury will comprise of soloists from the UK, China, Russia, Germany, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Albania, Slovenia, Lithuania and Finland. Between them, they have won prizes at major international music competitions and performed internationally at some of the world’s most prestigious venues.

As the official media partner of this new initiative, THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE will bring you of all of the latest developments. TMM

More information available at newstarscompetition.com

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Kann it be a success?

1/28/2016

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Ph: Katy Kann's Personal Archive

Arts A graduate from the University of Manchester has kickstarted an international arts competition. The KannAwards are named after the founder's name, Katy Kann, who knows of the struggles of young artists

Jeanmiguel Uva
Deputy Editor-in-Chief

We all know that starting a career in the art world can be particularly hard. You may be one of those self-taught artists that love wandering around the Northern Quarter and Whitworth Gallery while painting or taking pictures in your spare time. You might be talented, but as we know, that is not enough. Talent is not enough. Funding and exposure are important to show the world what you are worth.

Inspired by this struggle that many young artists go through, Manchester graduate Katy Kann decided to change that. Last year she started the KannAwards, an international competition where young artists can compete in painting, drawing, photography and short film categories. This year the competition comes back after its success last year promising better prizes and more renowned judges.

Speaking to THE MANCHESTER MAGAZINE, Katy Kann said: “I believe there’s a lot of potential among University of Manchester students, and I think the KannAwards is an excellent opportunity for anyone who wants to start giving exposure to their art. If you are young, ambitious and have faith in what you produce, you should participate.”

The prize for the winners consists in 250 pound in cash and an internship in their area of work in the United Kingdom or international locations like the United States, Germany or Spain. Winners and remarkable pieces will also gain exposure in ArtMonthly, a magazine, and the opportunity to work and network with known artists in their respective area.

This year renowned figures like Hollywood director Steven Finestone, Cambridge University photography lecturer Kertish Hacker and Oran O’Reilly from the University of Manchester will be among the judges of the contest. The deadline to submit pieces is March 14. TMM

More information available at kannawards.com

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The rebel who kept Manchester safe

12/11/2015

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Sir Peter Fahy was in charge of Greater Manchester Police for almost eight years // Ph: Antonio Rolo Duarte/ The Manchester Magazine

Exclusive In his first major interview since retiring from Greater Manchester Police, chief constable Sir Peter Fahy speaks to The Manchester Magazine about his time as a student and his 34 years fighting crime

Jeanmiguel Uva
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
António Rolo Duarte
Editor-in-Chief

In the space of less than a week, Sir Peter Fahy retired from being Britain’s longest serving chief constable, was appointed CEO of the charity Retrak and became an honorary professor of criminal justice at the University of Manchester. That comes after a 34-year career in policing, in which he was knighted by the queen, changed the lives of thousands of vulnerable people around the country and influenced security policy worldwide.

We had the honour of having coffee with Sir Peter at Christies Bistro on a blustery morning a few weeks ago, while just up the road the Manchester Christmas Markets were being evacuated due to a terrorist threat. Surrounded by Gothic-style architecture of the Whitworth Building and the Old Quadrangle, and with one of the university’s Nobel Prize winners sitting just a few tables away, we felt there could be no better setting to be inspired by the words of the man who for so many years kept our city safe.

You have just retired from one of the most admirable policing careers ever. Still, many years ago you were also a student, just like us. What kind of student were you?
Well, I did a lot of volunteering but I was also on the edge of fairly extreme politics. The big thing then was South Africa and the Apartheid, and the University of Hull [where Sir Peter studied Spanish and French] had shares in Barclays bank, who were big in South Africa. So one of the things we did was we had a big campaign to try and get them to disinvest from South Africa. We actually occupied one of the university buildings and I got carried out by the police.

You got carried out by the police... So how does one go from there to a life fighting crime?
After leaving university, I worked for about three months for Arthur Andersen, a big accountancy company. And one day in London I walked down the street at lunch time and there was a newspaper that was closing that day. All the staff were standing around because they were going to be made redundant. And I looked and thought: “I’ve lost my contact with you.” So I went back to the office, put in my resignation and joined the police. I wanted to do something where I was more in contact with the community.

Was that motivation important for your work in the police later on?
Definitely. People think that a policing career is all about studying the law. It is not, really. You can go on the internet to learn about law. The big thing is to be able to relate to people, to be able to talk to people. And certainly here, when I first became chief constable of Greater Manchester, it was a very traditional force. The change I tried to drive through was a far greater commitment to neighbourhood policing, building relationships with local people and trying to make long term change by engaging with the communities.

People think that a policing career is all about studying the law. It is not, really. You can go on the internet to learn about law. The big thing is to be able to relate to people.

The police has changed quite a lot since you first joined. Now there are more regulations, more oversight as well. Do you feel that these changes have undermined in any way the effectiveness of the police?
No, I would actually say the opposite. I think greater transparency enables us, and makes policing better. Every single development I have seen in policing which has brought in more transparency, oversight and independence, has helped improve policing.

Why?
Because it forces you to be more professional. It forces you to be more accountable, it forces you to think more carefully about what you are doing. It forces you to think about your justification because you have to explain it. And by having more oversight and more independence, you get more people coming in, who will then challenge you with new ideas. And the other thing is that for police to be effective, you have to have legitimacy.

Speaking of legitimacy, the UK is the country with the highest level of CCTV cameras per capita in the world. Is this a good thing?
In my entire police career I cannot ever remember anyone complaining about CCTV cameras, if anything it was always the opposite. For me, the strength of the oversight is very important. There should be no problem whatsoever for anybody to walk into the control room at Manchester City Council to see all the CCTV cameras, how are they are operated and what are the safeguards. You know, let’s be completely open.

More cameras have not made the student population less concerned about crime, especially crime towards women. Every year a number of rape cases are reported in student areas like Fallowfield. Has the police in Manchester failed us students in dealing with rape?
No, I do not think so. One of the changes we brought through in Greater Manchester Police was a huge commitment to dealing with vulnerable people, particularly with sexual offences. What you always have to remember within the offence of rape, is that sadly most rapes are between people known to one another. The impression always is that this is about a stranger being attacked in the street. Those cases are actually pretty rare. And it can just be “I met this lad in a bar and we had quite a lot to drink together and we were getting on pretty well and I went back to his flat and I never wanted this to happen” but that is sadly what most of the rapes are, cases between people who are known to one another. And that does actually make it harder to investigate.

What is the solution then?
We must never get across to women that in any way you are to blame for rape. But sadly we have to say that you need to use common sense. If one of your friends goes off with a complete stranger, be concerned about it. We also have to try and find a way of students organizing themselves, of students being able to take a stand about this themselves.

Another concern of the community is the one of drugs, not only the consumption but also the dealing.
Because we have given much higher priority to protecting vulnerable people, then it is quite clear that things like drugs are taking less of a priority. Our approach to drugs has largely been about trying to prevent harm. If people complain about a drug dealer in a given area, or drug use in an area causing problems, then the police will try and address it. But it is more about education, more about trying to keep people safe.

Some would say arresting the drug dealers could keep people safe.
We can arrest dealers and they can be sent to prison, but what then happens is you disrupt the market. Because now there are other dealers who are trying to get that position so you often get violence and shootings as somebody tries to take the spot. Also, if you have taken drugs off the market the price will go up. That means some of the addicts will have to steal more things to fund their drugs. So as a police chief it does cause you quite a lot of agony about what is the right thing to do, I certainly don’t think legalization is an answer…

Sorry, why not?
Because I cannot see that that will actually solve the problem of the violence and the crime that drug dealing generates. The people who are dealing the drugs are not suddenly going and operate a soup shop or open a supermarket. All that will happen is that they will try and gain different substances, they will try to undercut the official price and they will go more into some of the other substances. And also I do not think as a society we can give a green light to people putting dangerous things into their body.

Antonio Rolo Duarte, Jeanmiguel Uva and Sir Peter Fahy // Ph: TMM

Sir Peter Fahy lecturing at the University of Manchester // Ph: TMM

70,000 police jobs were eliminated in the last coalition government. Nevertheless crime is still relatively low overall. Does this mean austerity is working?
No, I think what it shows and what research has shown for quite a long time is that the number of police have little impact on the level of crime. And some of that is clearly about better technology and the fact that a lot of things people used to steal are now very cheap. But I personally think that it is because people are more civilized. And I do actually think that your generation is more civilized than my generation was.

More civilized?
I am highly optimistic about your generation. Your generation takes fewer drugs, drinks less, commits less crime and is not involved in so many dodgy relationships. I think you are a lot better at communication and relationships and I think that, strangely, social media has enabled that to happen. You are also growing up in a more diverse world and you do not have all the prejudices that my generation had. Every generation will say: “it is young people who are the problem”. But actually all the evidence shows that your generation is actually a lot better than my generation.

After the Paris attacks, some American politicians argued that if the attacks had taken place in US soil the outcomes would have been very different. Due to different gun control laws, the Americans could more easily protect themselves. What do you think of that?
Nonsense, absolutely nonsense! Look at all the mass shootings they have in America. And we only hear about the more serious ones. They have mass shootings every single day. You can get very upset about Paris, but look at the number of people being killed every single day in America. No, the problem they have in America is the availability of weapons. And unfortunately the problem they have in mainland Europe, particularly in France, is the availability of military level weapons.

If a situation like the Paris attacks happened in Manchester, would the police here be prepared to respond?
I do not think we would be any better prepared to respond than the French police were.

Talking about terrorism in an interview to the Manchester Evening News, you said that “people should be realistic but not scared”. You said this before the Paris attacks. Now, after the Paris attacks, people are, understandably, scared. So does the police role change? Is it more about informing rather than preventing or reacting?
You do try and inform, you do try and calm things down. You do say to people: “be vigilant but don’t be scared”. Unfortunately terrorism produces a huge emotional reaction and some of that reaction can be pretty irrational. For instance, people will say: “it is not safe to go to Paris”. And you try to get across to them saying that actually the most dangerous thing you can do is drive a car. For women in Manchester, sadly, you are more likely to be attacked by someone you know than by a terrorist. So the most important thing is to get across that it is not essential for a police officer to have a machine gun in order for you to be safe, the most important thing is that people in a mosque or in a school are aware of what to look out for and will be prepared to tell the police if necessary.

It all goes back to the links with the community then.
Yes, you always have to be realistic that just having more and more guns will not protect you. Because it sadly did not protect people in Paris. It is about your relationship with local people, your relationships with schools and communities and places of worship. The big question about Paris is: why did nobody see it? Why did nobody say these people were planning this? The big question must be why this was being planned and nobody saw anything or said anything or felt they should tell the police.

You have to be realistic that having more and more guns will not protect you. Because it sadly did not protect people in Paris.

You retired from the police little more than a month ago. Were you happy to leave the police at this point?
I was happy certainly about leaving the police, but that was more a feeling of satisfaction that I had achieved all I wanted to achieve. Part of that is that I won some battles but there are some other battles that I did not win and did not want to keep fighting them. I am not going to succeed. I have tried, but now somebody else can try to do it.

So what is your biggest dream for the future?
My biggest dream would be that people of different faiths live peacefully together. Because unfortunately this is the root of quite a lot of dissention in the world and one of the great things about being a chief constable in a place like Manchester, is that you meet people from all sorts of religions and races, and you see the richness of them. So I think one of my biggest dreams is that people in the world from different backgrounds realize that what unites us is far stronger than what divides us.

And that links to your new job as CEO of a charity, Retrak.
Yes, Retrak is a charity which works with street children mainly in African countries. What it does is to rescue street children that want to live life on the streets, find out the reason why they left home and then hopefully reintegrate them back into their families and communities. And also trying to get them to understand that running away is not a solution to anything. When the chance came to do some work in Africa I absolutely loved it, I love Africa, I love the show of humanity and the vibrancy of the place.

Will we still see you influencing the criminal justice system though, perhaps in your new role as honorary professor at the University of Manchester?
I hope so, I believe that is one of the reasons why I wanted to get involved with the university, to see whether we can use a lot of the power of academic research and thinking to influence the criminal justice system.

As a final note, in your life you have been interviewed hundreds of times and asked many different questions. Is there a question you wish people asked you more often?
I think the difficult ones are always about your personal dilemmas, and what would you resign over.

So what would you resign over?
I hope I would resign over a political initiative that I felt would do harm to vulnerable people or where a short-term political initiative was overriding my professional judgment about the liberty of individuals. I do think that is always a difficult question. And an almost more difficult question is: what you think you should have resigned over? But I am not sure I have an answer for that one. TMM

Sir Peter Fahy is now an honorary professor of Criminal Justice at The University of Manchester.
He is also Chief Executive of Retrak, and you can find more about that at www.retrak.org

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