The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice. Keith Hellawell QPM (born 18 May 1942) is a British retired police officer, [1] former UK Government drugs-czar, ex-chairman of Sports Direct plc.

View image in fullscreen Keith Hellawell held his role as advisor to Labour on drugs policy, or the nation’s ‘drug tsar’ from 1998 to 2003. As a teenager he went to work in the coal mines, before joining the police force at 20, where he was promoted to the rank of sergeant in 1965 and inspector in 1966. He started work as a coal miner in 1958 but left to pursue a career in the Huddersfield Borough Police in 1962, gaining entry at the second attempt.It was his expertise in narcotics that led to his appointment in 1998 as the UK’s “drug tsar”, only for that position to be downgraded in 2001 to an advisory role. Hellawell resigned from his position as Sports Direct chairman in September 2018, on the day of the company's AGM.

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. The Outsider is the autobiography of a man of absolute integrity fired by the determination to better not only his own lot, but that of other humans as well, and to change things from the inside. Keith Hellawell was born and brought up in Yorkshire and, after spending some years working as a minter, has been a policeman all his life. So Wednesday’s annual shareholder meeting at embattled retailer Sports Direct – where Hellawell will be bracing himself for investors to vote on his future as the company’s chairman – merely appears like the continuation of a trend. It was a hard-bitten, inauspicious start for a man who was eventually to become Chief Constable of Cleveland, and then West Yorkshire, and later, controversially, New Labour’s much-feted and summarily dismissed ‘Drugs Tsar’.

citation needed] Rising through the ranks, including working in CID, he was appointed Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983, then Deputy Chief Constable of Humberside Police in 1985.