Who is Claire Denby-Knight?

As the Director of Behaviour Change Counsel, Claire is the driving force behind all our Counselling, Conflict, and Communication solutions, whether they be achieved by Consultation, Training or in-person sessions*. But what brought her to this position? Over to you, Claire…

Who I was…

When I was ‘little’, I always wanted to join the police service, but, as 5’2” I was actually too ‘little’! Then one day, following a very serious car crash outside my house, I learnt that the height restrictions had been lifted – and I joined up. Until that point, I had mainly worked in sports coaching and was the ladies and junior boys County squash coach in the West Midlands, as well as working with individuals. Upon being accepted into the police, I now accept that I joined with a very ‘gung-ho’ attitude towards those who erred on the ‘wrong side’ of the law – almost the “…lock ‘em up and throw away the key…” – a state of mind I now fully dissociate from.

My journey in brief…

As a probationary officer, I was told by my supervisor not to be nervous, because my first arrest would be simple, “… a nice easy juvenile shoplifter…”. I did as I was told, and ‘lifted’ a 13-year-old from a retail park on a Saturday afternoon and then went through the entire custody procedure with them, learning all the way. A couple of years later, safely established as an officer, I began to wonder why ‘we’ were expected to arrest children stealing food. Seeds were sown.

Later, I met an amazing lady call Jill Sawad (RIP) and spent the day with her as she recounted her horrific experience as the survivor of the Ealing Vicarage Rapes in 1986. Included in her story, however, was her meeting with one of her attackers, which almost physically blew me away, especially given the graphic level of offence detail she had disclosed. My sown seeds were beginning to germinate.

I subsequently had the privilege of meeting participants from other notable cases – Sara Payne whose daughter Sarah was kidnapped and brutally assaulted and murdered, as well as Albert Kirby (RIP) who was the senior investigating officer in the James Bulger murder. By the time I met these incredible people, my eyes had opened and my perspective changed, as I knew my career would.

My germinated seeds started to bear fruit.

I began to specialise in areas of vulnerability – especially sexual offences – and acquired finely honed interviewing skills. I was also successful in becoming a force Law Trainer and Diversity Champion specialising in matters of transgenderism and dyslexia. I was then selected for the force Restorative Justice (RJ) programme and quickly moved through from being a busy and successful case facilitator, to trainer, and finally to being the trainer who trained the trainers to become RJ facilitators.

I suspect that by now I was becoming known as being a bit of an anomaly – someone who viewed things differently, asked the difficult questions and always wanted to fathom the ‘why’ around every issue. Good! For example, why would you lock up a young person stealing food or clothes? Surely there is a bigger – more humane – driver behind their actions, not just the desire to become a registered criminal. This perspective often forms my starting point in cases I work with.

As time and my career developed, I learned that I was strongly drawn to areas of deep difficulty, believing that that’s where the biggest wins will be made, and undertook some specialist sexual offences work and placements, including the paedophile unit.

Then it happened. My role changed and my life changed. I was subjected to a direct attack on my life whilst on duty resulting not only in physical injury but also PTSD.

As I healed, I deliberately tested my faith in Restorative Justice and formally requested that the process be invoked in my case. “They” decided it wasn’t appropriate and refused to concede to my superior knowledge – and victim rights – that the intervention be offered. Eventually I was told that “they” offered the option to the offender, who refused to partake. I decided that this would be my “victory”, as I clearly had the balls to meet them, but they were not brave enough to come face to face will little old me and take responsibility for their actions. It transpired that they would rather go to prison than hear my words.

After more than 20 years in policing I left and set up my own company, confident in the fact that I had the requisite skills, abilities and knowledge to successfully serve my clientele. However, in order to be certain, I delayed my company launch whilst I deliberately immersed myself in the education sector (a VERY challenging and incredibly rewarding PRU) for a year, and then another year in housing, exploring a different facet of conflict.

Where I am now

My qualifications, skills and experiences in policing, education and housing have carried forward into my business life – skills such as Counselling, Conflict solutions and Communication were embedded in my work – and been enhanced since leaving. It will come as no surprise that these areas are the bedrock of my company.

As an example of how I think now, I recently watched a programme called “Everest. Live or die” which is a documentary following a team of professional climbers with numerous summit bids and a variety of successes.

As each person is introduced to the documentary, their stats are given, eg Adrian Ballinger 12 attempts, 8 summits, David Morton 10 attempts, 6 summits and Sid Pattison 8 attempts, 3 summits. The Claire of old would have translated those figures into how many times the climbers failed to reach the summit and focused on their inability to reach the peak. Now I look at the courage it must have taken for each man to turn away from the ultimate goal, and how brave they were to go through such tough decision-making processes.

Put yourself there for a moment and imagine how they felt. A tough choice and two clearly different outcomes. I now applaud what would seem to be their ‘failure’ – depending upon how one would define failure – and have the utmost respect and admiration for this seemingly negative achievement. To turn around at the crest of the world – what strength, what achievement! I told you I was an anomaly!

My work lens now focuses on whether the person is naughty or bad or needy as I pick through their behavioural traits to find the root cause from which we can then work together to address and make change, and err on the side of “…people aren’t born bad, stuff can happen to force them into difficult decisions…”. Thank you Albert Kirby.

After all, any one of us could be unemployed, homeless or destitute, almost in the blink of an eye. I wonder what choices we would make were this to happen to us.

To find out more about our work please call or email. I look forward to talking with you.

*Please note that details of some of our portfolio of work can be found on the website, but we will always have time to talk you through how to best help your school, business, family or trauma related issues.