Tues 6th October

Forced out with Kevin Maxwell
Date: Tues 6th October
Time: 7pm
Venue: Facebook

Kevin Maxwell was a dream candidate for the police force - he had a long-held desire to serve his community, astrong moral compass and a clear aptitude for both the strategic and practical aspects of policing. As a gay black man from a working class family, Kevin Maxwell could easily have been a poster boy for the force's stated commitment to equal opportunities. He was after all a dream candidate for the police force having had a long held desire to serve his community, a strong moral compass and a clear aptitude for both the strategic and practical aspects of policing. But instead he came up against entrenched prejudice, open racism and homophobia. For more than ten years, Kevin strove against the odds, until he took the force to an employment tribunal - with devastating results.

Forced Out is a revelatory exposé combining deeply affecting memoir with sharp analysis and a fascinating insider perspective on day-to-day life in the force. It is a touchstone for the silent many who have either tried to ignore abuse for the sake of their career or who have been bullied out of their jobs. It paints a sobering portrait of an institution that has not yet learned the lessons of the past and whose prejudice is informing the cases it chooses to investigate and the way it investigates them. And it asks the important question: what needs to change?
 
Kevin Maxwell served as a detective in both the Greater Manchester and London’s Metropolitan Police forces. He now writes and advocates for social justice and equality. He has written for newspapers and magazines including the Independent and the Guardian and has appeared on television and radio for the BBC and Sky News.


Joanne Anderson has worked with Merseyside Police on and off advising on race relations from a community perspective since the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. From 2007 - 2017, she was employed by the Crown Prosecution Service as a national policy lead from Community Engagement working on issues such as Violence Against Women and Girls and Hate Crime Prosecution. Joanne is currently a local authority elected Councillor for the Labour Party for Princes Park Ward in Toxteth, a community of which over half of its residents are from Black and Ethnic minority communities.  

 
 

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