Interview with DS Natasha Feerick

Detective Sergeant Natasha Feerick works for Manchester North Criminal Investigations Department (CID).  Having always wanted to work in policing, DS Feerick joined the force shortly after leaving university.

She’s been with Greater Manchester Police for 7 years, but no day is ever the same. She could be working on up to 4 different cases a day and like most Detectives, DS Feerick thrives on outsmarting criminals, cracking cases and hearing the word guilty in court.

For detectives, a successful prosecution is often the result of weeks (sometimes months) of hard work, and it means all the more if - by putting the offender behind bars - they are preventing them from doing more harm. We asked her about one prosecution in particular that meant a lot and how it may have saved a life.

DS Natasha Feerick – the prosecution that has stayed with me
“I had a job on New Year’s Day where a man had stabbed his wife. They were Romanian nationals and the woman had fled Romania with her daughter, hoping to leave her husband behind, but he had followed her to Manchester.

“Once he’d tracked them down, he started living with them again. On New Year’s Eve, the man had been playing a game of cards with his daughter and her boyfriend while the woman was upstairs. She’d gone to bed early because she was distressed and upset to have been followed to the UK.

“While she was upstairs the man started getting abusive towards the daughter and her boyfriend. The mum came downstairs to ask what was wrong and the man quickly turned on her and started abusing her. She went to walk out of the kitchen and that’s when he lunged at her in front of the children and stabbed her in the back. As she fell to the ground, he went to stab her again, but the daughter and her boyfriend managed to get the knife off him.

“The mum was sent to hospital and while she was there the hospital alerted the police to the stab wounds. The husband was arrested, the knife was recovered from the address, and I went to see the woman in hospital.

“It was a difficult conversation because violence and abuse had become so normalised to the mum that initially she had no expectations of getting support. Her husband had broken her arm in Romania but when she reported it, the police had informed her that it was an issue within their marriage.

“She provided a statement and I then had to explain why going to court would be in her best interests. She was very hesitant and as the officer in charge it was my job to reassure her.

“The husband went to court and pleaded guilty because the evidence we had was overwhelming. He was sent to prison and will be deported back to Romania on release.

“The woman later emailed me saying how grateful she was and that for me is the reason why you join the CID. This prosecution was life changing for her and I suppose lifesaving as well. She was in such a violent relationship that she thought getting stabbed in the back was almost normal but in sending him to prison and giving her that space we’ve helped change the course of her life.”

Manchester North Criminal Investigations Department is currently recruiting. If you’ve been affected by DS Feerick’s story today and want to help eradicate violence against women and girls, join us. Here we make a difference and help the people who need us most: Careers | Greater Manchester Police (gmp.police.uk)