Special Constable Britni-May Edwards
Since starting as a Special Constable in 2020, Federation member Britni-May Edwards has brought a lot of ambition to the table at Cambridgeshire Constabulary.
Having had a long-standing interest in the emergency services, Britni took the opportunity to begin contributing to one as she stepped into her volunteer police duties and immediately threw herself into the thick of the frontline across Ely.
Not wanting to limit herself to one unit, she has made an impact in both response and neighbourhood teams for the city, typically ensuring she lends her services to the Constabulary in at least one shift a week.
Britni, 31, has also been crucial in specialist operations such as the Force’s Vision Zero Team – a group founded by and largely made up of fellow Specials with the aim of reducing casualties in road accidents across the county.
And the voluntary cop revealed she has plans to become an even more complete officer already mapped out.
“I think it’s important to stamp your mark as a Special, and to show that willingness and flexibility from the start,” she said.
“You are giving up your own time for the police force, so it’s not necessarily that you have something to prove, but you can put yourself in the right place to get as much out of the job as a regular officer.
“So far, I have got so much out of it. I am getting a lot of professional satisfaction and I have made some of my closest friends through the Special Constabulary.
“Vision Zero, especially, is a great project to be part of and is really making a difference. Even with that, I know where it can get better for me – I want to become more involved with the educational side of things, where we go out to schools with road safety awareness, as opposed to the more operational side.
“Overall, I am very happy with where my Special career is at.”
Britni’s enjoyment of life as a police volunteer was influential in her decision earlier this year to take up a day job at Cambridgeshire Constabulary, closing a long and successful body of work in the jewellery industry to become a change and research officer for the Force.
This position meant that in addition to progressing her own, she could help the goals of other officers take lift-off too.
Supporting a department of analysts, Britni helps to track ways in which a better policing service can be delivered through business change.
“After my time as a Special, I wanted to feel integrated on another level,” she explained.
“In that sense, the two roles go hand-in-hand – when I’m out on the ground, my day job sparks conversations with other officers. It’s nice speaking to them and encouraging them to take their ideas further, whether that’s with operations, training, equipment, and many more efficient ways of working.”
Both of her responsibilities complement each other practically, as well, Britni added, as she credited the Force for being “really supportive of me getting my Special hours in”.
She says holding two roles within the same organisation makes it difficult to truly switch off when not in the office or out on patrol, but that her best effort of doing so is through playing at St Neots Rugby Club.
The 31-year-old’s level of drive was apparent as she went into detail on some of her targets for the future as a Special.
“I have my eyes set on being a method of entry officer one day. I find the physical aspect of it really appealing and I can’t imagine it would be much different to playing rugby in some ways.”
Her sporting prowess does end with rugby – growing up, Britni enjoyed major success in martial arts, holding a black belt and world champion title in Taekwondo and trialling for the 2012 Olympics.
This has helped inspire another one of her aspirations to becoming an officer safety trainer.
She continued: “The yearly refresher [in officer safety training] is my favourite time of the year. I’d love to teach fellow Specials the fundamental skills that keep them safe when out and about.
“I’d also like to be a bigger part of the days of action we have for our different operations and projects in the future. These ops are one of the things I love most about policing, and I think we always do a great job of linking up with other organisations to get the really important messages across. So, to be more involved with these multi-agency events would be a privilege for me.”
And when she has reached these aims, Britni says she will set her sights on fresh objectives as she looks ahead to the upcoming years in her double life as a representative of the police force.
“I will always want to expand and evolve as an officer – perhaps because I am a volunteer, I don’t really feel limited by anything.
“Being a Special Constable is brilliant because you really do feel in control of your own destiny. I’ve learnt that policing can be a tough landscape and putting on the uniform as a volunteer can help bridge that gap.
“I think the phrase ‘the public are the police and the police are the public’ is seen in its truest form through Specials and that really does hold a lot of gravitas for me.
“As for my day job, it has given me the new lease of life I wanted for that side of my career and given me even more purpose in the force. It is still fairly early days but I am excited to help realise the ambitions of other officers while moving forward with my own,” she ended.