The PC who works in London but lives 12,000 miles away
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
For six months of the year Chris McKee works as a police constable in a congested inner city borough in west London. His life and work as a Metropolitan Police officer seem unexceptional - except that to get home he has to fly 12,000 miles.
For six months of the year Chris McKee works as a police constable in a congested inner city borough in west London. His life and work as a Metropolitan Police officer seem unexceptional - except that to get home he has to fly 12,000 miles.
One of a number of international commuters in the police force, "home" for PC McKee is the New Zealand city of Dunedin. Other Met officers have set up home in France and Spain and there are unconfirmed reports of a London based officer whose home address is in Australia.
PC McKee, 48, is able to make the long trip to South Island because of flexible working hours. They allow him to work long hours for two months and then take the next two months off.
These arrangements are exceptional, but more common are uniformed officers who work seven 12-hour days in return for getting the next week off. This allows the beat officers to live "the dream" of a crash pad in the capital, while their main home is a large detached house somewhere warm and foreign.
In PC McKee's case the 26-hour flight home to his wife and five children, aged three to 18, is well worth it. He paid £150,000 for a five-bedroomed house with large grounds in a smart suburb of Dunedin. As well as enjoying low crime and good schools, the city is close to a colony of the world's rarest penguins, the only mainland breeding colony of the royal albatross, and New Zealand sealions.
The officer, who earns £30,000 a year and works in Hammersmith, told The Sun: "It's a long way to travel to work, but it's worth it to give my family a standard of living we could only dream about in England. The value of my house would barely buy a two-bedroomed flat in London."
He added: "It works very well for me. It is actually easier for me to do my job than it was when I lived in England. I used to take all the stress of my job home with me and it was hard to relax. Now I'm a lot more fun with the kids when I am in New Zealand and I can be totally focused on what I am doing at work."
PC McKee admitted that there were disadvantages. He said: "I miss my wife and family and it is the things like birthdays which get to you."
A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman confirmed that other officers were working in London and living in another country, but could not say how many. France and Spain are understood to be the favoured destination for the commuting officers, who are attracted by the relatively low house prices and cost of living.Fast rail links to France and cheap flights to Spain have also helped.
Many Met officers take advantage of free travel within a 70-mile radius of central London and have moved with their families to the suburbs. But not everyone is happy with the shift in work patterns.
One unforeseen consequence, according to officers, is that the force is finding it harder to recruit detectives to the CID because it does not have flexitime. Senior officers also fear that they will be short of officers in an emergency, and that court cases could collapse. John O' Connor, a former commander of the Flying Squad, said: "It's crazy - what happens if this officer is wanted to give evidence in court or deal with a public order situation? He can't possibly be available to provide protection for the public if he is in New Zealand."
The Met spokeswoman said that shift patterns, which were agreed with the Police Federation, would not be allowed if they did not benefit the force.
THE GLOBAL COMMUTERS
Around 25,000 people commute from abroad to work in the UK, according to the latest figures, for 2002, collated by Alphametrics, data analysts. The largest numbers come from Spain (8,000), Italy (4,800), France (4,600), according to the figures based on an EU survey which does not specify the nationalities.
International commuting is greatest in Belgium (2.33 per cent), France (1.5 per cent) and Luxembourg and Austria (both around 1 per cent), but this is mostly cross-border workers between neighbouring regions.
According to the Government's Labour Force Survey, there were 8,000 UK residents who commuted to work abroad in the survey period from summer 2003 to spring 2004.