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Life After The Police - Detective Games
What police officers do after they leave the service can be as varied as it is interesting. We start this series with an interview with ex-DC Catherine Thompson.
ConsultingCops (CC) - Hi Catherine could you tell us about when and where you served with the police please? What rank and role did you perform?
Catherine Thompson (CT) - I served with Leicestershire Police for around 13 years from 2007 until 2020. After my first two years I became a Detective and spent most of my time within the Domestic Violence Unit.
CC - What did you think you would do when you decided to leave the police?
CT - I knew I wanted to work for myself in some capacity. I had become sick and tired of having to do what other people, often with less experience, decided should be done. After suffering repeated pretty severe bouts of depression during my time in the police I also knew I didn’t want anything too stressful or that would take over my entire life.
CC - I understand you have a couple of successful companies. Could you tell us about them?
CT - When I left the police I was initially a franchisee with a CSI events company. I had been doing this for around a year part time and had built up a number of bookings throughout 2020 which gave me the confidence to leave the police to run events full time. A short time later Covid arrived and cancelled everything. While the franchisor was happy to wait the pandemic out I became restless and decided to try creating a play at home investigation file. I did just this and launched it to immediate huge demand. I now have four games out in total and sell here, in the USA and Canada. I’ve got my eye on Australia for further expansion next year as well as writing game 5. While the pandemic continued I decided to leave the franchise group and go it alone. My main reason being the demands for a percentage of my sales from the franchisor who had done nothing to develop or market the product. Once the world reopened I was approached by a couple of large events providers and asked if I would pitch to become their CSI events provider. Having won the contract, I now travel up and down the country delivering in person team building investigation events. I have a total of three event storylines – a CSI murder, a secret agent spy story and a kidnap the CEO scenario. Both the games and the events are going incredibly well & at this stage I haven’t had a day off for around 6 weeks but I couldn’t be happier!
CC - And who are your main clients for your companies? Do they cross over at all?
CT - I think there is a bit of a cross over but not too much. The games generally sell to the wannabe detective/ true crime fan whereas the events can be literally any work group just wanting a fun activity away from the office.
CC - How much of your police experience has helped you with creating and running your businesses?
CT - It definitely helps having needed the attention to detail required to be a Detective. There are so very many elements to keeping things running smoothly that it can be overwhelming at times, probably not as overwhelming as having a huge ever-increasing crime queue though! Being able to cope in a crisis / deal with things as they happen is also another skill I think I learnt from being in the police. My first ever CSI event was with a group of students at Cambridge university. I didn’t know until I arrived that they couldn’t actually speak English and that I would need to use an interpreter for the whole session. I think had I not turned up to thousands of constantly changing horrendous situations before this I would probably have got back in my car and gone home.
CC - With regards to your CSI events and Games scenarios have any of your real investigations when serving influenced their development?
CT - No they really are entirely fictional with regards to the storylines although I definitely used my experience in terms of the evidence sources. Each of the games begins with a BC4 internal memo then we have phone records, ANPR data, statements etc. All stuff you find in a real Investigation.
CC - How do you advertise your businesses? Is there a website our readers could visit?
CT - I do have a website – www.coldcaseinvestigationunit.com. I also have a Facebook page, Instagram page and TikTok account in the same name. The games sell on Amazon so I advertise on there a bit but in reality, they mostly look after themselves & demand is pretty steady all year round with repeat customers.
CC - What Social Media profiles do you have and as all news seems bad news about the police at the moment. Do you get any adverse comments from people in relation to you being an ex-police officer?
CT - As above – Facebook, TikTok & Instagram. I haven’t actually had any negativity about being former police, I use it as a selling point for the games & people seem to like the idea.
CC - Do you miss being a police officer? If yes, what do you miss?
CT - Not for a second if I’m honest. The job had changed so much just in the 13 years I was there & I had begun to hate it. I keep in touch with the people that matter and am happy to never have to step foot in a custody suite again.
CC - What are your plans for the future?
CT - I have only been running the business for 2 years, my next aim is to have regular employed staff to help with the day to day stuff as well as building up a bank of people to help run my events.
CC - Any other comments you would like to make?
CT - To anyone unhappy in the police and feeling trapped I would say get out & do it before it crushes you. There is so much life out here and so much support available to those looking to build a business. While I’m so glad I did the job as long as I did I’m also so very glad I left.
