Obituary: Jinty Kerr

When Jinty Kerr first pulled on her police uniform she was, she later observed, little more than a “glorified messenger”.

Fast forward more than three decades and the 19-year-old rookie cop had powered through the ranks, forging a pioneering career full of firsts for women in policing.

There had been a seismic shift in attitudes during her working life in the force which began in an era when female officers who married were obliged to resign and ended with her retirement as superintendent, having been the first woman in charge of a Scottish drugs squad and a sub-divisional commander.

Even then, she continued her commitment to social justice and women’s rights, working with organisations including the Scottish Prostitutes Education Project and the Scottish Association for the Study of Delinquency.

The daughter of Sheriff Robert Kerr and his wife Mona and the youngest of their three girls, she spent her early childhood in Edinburgh before her father’s job took them to Fort William. She was educated at Onich and Banavie primaries and spent a couple of years at Lochaber High School, completing her education as a boarder at Albyn School for Girls in Aberdeen, where she made lifelong friends.

Although clever enough to go to university, she rejected that path and, having studied German at school, spent a year as an au pair in Germany. Already equipped with a strong sense of social responsibility, she was inspired to join the police partly through her cousin, Nigel, who was in London’s Metropolitan force, and partly influenced by growing up with a father who wanted to see justice was done.

It was February 1968 and only 3 per cent of the Edinburgh City Police force was female – a grand total of 40 women.

“I was really a glorified messenger at first,” she once said, “You passed on all your cases to the specialists, CID or the traffic police. Occasionally, those of us in the women’s department got the doorstep beat.”

Although they didn’t do regular beat work, there were four areas, close to Gayfield Square station where she worked, that were known as the girls’ beats. The incidents the WPCs were permitted to handle were all female-orientated, involving shoplifters, runaway children and domestic violence.

Kerr really wanted to get into the traffic division, but recalled that, at that time, the chief superintendent’s policy was that there would be women in his department over his dead body.

However, after three years attached to the uniformed branch of B Division and seriously determined to carve out a career, she managed to get a transfer to CID as an acting detective constable in the women detective officers department in July 1971.

In October 1973 she was seconded to the Scottish Crime Squad, which she loved, and after three years there returned to CID, in what was by that time the new Lothian and Borders force, working in B Division and covering the north side of the city.

She followed that with a stint teaching cadets at the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan, which automatically earned her promotion to sergeant. Latterly she was assistant college staff officer. It was a role she thoroughly enjoyed and there, as throughout her career, she mentored countless recruits, urging them on to develop and reach their potential.

She had tried, and failed, to become the first woman accepted on to the accelerated promotion course, but simply used her experience to encourage others to succeed. Soon, thanks to her ability to identify talent and nurture it, a small trickle of women was successful.

After leaving the college, she became section sergeant at Leith, moved in November 1984 to the chief constable’s office where she took on administrative duties and learned how the force was run. Although she was a people person, she was also an excellent organiser and the experience there was invaluable.

She broke through the glass ceiling in January 1993 as the first woman in Scotland to lead a drugs squad – it was arguable whether she was the UK’s first or second woman to hold such a post – and really made a difference.

She went out on surveillance with her officers, applied for capital budget to buy new equipment and, after arguing vociferously that the drugs squad’s 1400cc-1600cc vehicles were not powerful enough to catch the dealers, acquired two-litre cars to do the trick. Towards the end of her tenure there, one of her staff returned from a Scottish-wide meeting of forces proudly announcing that Lothian and Borders had the best drugs squad in the country – the best-trained, the best-equipped and with the best record of catching the criminals. It merely confirmed that she had done a superb job.

“It was her modus operandi,” said her sister Gemma, “going in, finding out what’s wrong, working out a plan and getting it fixed before she left.”

Another career highlight was her time as a sub-divisional commander in Wester Hailes between 1999 and 2001, following a two-year spell at force headquarters. When she arrived, relations between the police and the community were in tatters and morale among the staff was poor. But she relied upon her father’s maxim – “if you’re going to bother doing something, you need to do it properly” – and, in her own typical style, went in, talked to the people to see what they needed, what the police could do for them, and delivered, largely succeeding in turning the situation around.

Lothian and Borders’ current Chief Constable, David Strang, said: “Jinty Kerr made a huge impact on those who knew her. Her commitment to policing and to serving the public was exemplary.”

Paying tribute to a remarkable and courageous woman, he added: “She displayed great warmth, high levels of energy and a lively sense of humour. Many officers still serving look back with fond memories of Jinty, so sad to hear of her death. She had many interests outside policing and made a positive contribution in all she did.”

Having become the first woman chief inspector, she retired from the force as a superintendent and applied to become head of security at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. She was the official police candidate and, although the post had often been filled by such candidates, she lost out to a military man. It was another attempt to push the boundaries and become the first woman appointed.

She took a less stressful, part-time job with the Scottish Episcopal Church Mission Association and also worked with the Scottish Association for the Study of Delinquency and the Rotary Club of Edinburgh, as well as co-chairing the Scottish Prostitutes Education Project board.

She felt strongly that the prostitutes needed the protection of plying their trade in safety and had been impressed by the ethos of the Stockbridge madame Dora Noyce, who always ensured the girls in her Danube Street brothel were looked after, regularly inspected, seen by a doctor when required and given annual holidays. It was, she concluded, a good example.

Kerr, who was the first female captain of North Berwick’s Glen Golf Club, was also a woman of enormous humour, the life and soul of any party.

“She was a truly amazing and extraordinary person,” said her family. “There will not be anybody else like her.”

She is survived by her sisters Gemma and Pandora, brother-in-law Jim, nephew Robert and niece Thea.

ALISON SHAW