Profile: antisocial behaviour officer and former hovercraft builder PC Mike Ellis

TO Oxford's criminal underworld, Mike Ellis is Mr Antisocial Behaviour.

In recent years he has slapped ASBOs and their replacement CBOs on notorious dine-and-dash conman Eric Austin, a woman who pretended to be a pregnant to beg money and the petrol-drinking menace of Blackbird Leys, Robbie Stephens.

It may come as a surprise to some of his regular clients, then, to know that Pc Ellis has spent his time in Oxford doing everything in his power to avoid using these orders.

"Having to use an ASBO is almost a sign that you've failed," he explains.

"We put in place an entire set of responses to antisocial behaviour, starting with bringing them into the station and asking 'do you realise how you're affecting people?'"

This approach has not failed: from a time when his team were handing out three or four ASBOs a year, they can now boast that reports of antisocial behaviour in Oxford have fallen consistently since 2014.

Pc Ellis's ethos owes a lot to his training in the tribal-inspired discipline of restorative justice, his Christian background and perhaps the support of his own parents.

Born in Ilford, Essex, in 1960, the Ellis family moved to the Isle of Wight when he was three.

His describes his childhood as idyllic, finishing school on hot summer days and rushing down to the beach to go swimming as the sun went down.

Leaving school at 16, he got his first job with the British Hovercraft Corporation on the island, helping build hovercraft and helicopters.

In the summer of '79, he left the Isle of Wight 'with a rucksack on my back and went to seek my fortune'.

The 57-year-old said: "I hadn't got a clue where I was going, but I had some friends in Brackley so I wound up staying there and worked in Superdrug, working my way up to manager."

He ended up running the Burton's department at Debenham's in Oxford in the mid-80s, but said: "It didn't challenge me."

When a friend told him 'I've been a policeman for three years and I love it – there are never two days the same' he grabbed an application form.

He said: "I had thought about going into service and had a hankering for the military at one point.

"It sounded like a chance to give something back and make a positive difference."

He got the job, and in December 1987 started training with Thames Valley Police in Banbury.

"My parents were very proud of me," he says.

"I came home for Christmas that year and the first thing mum did was make me put my uniform on for a family photograph.

"We were a strong Christian family and I still go to church every Sunday: I think being a Christian helps me to be a better policeman.

"There are times when we are asked to face very difficult things and it can give you that extra support."

It may seem like divine providence, then, that when Pc Ellis joined TVP he was one of the first in the force to be trained in the new discipline of restorative justice.

This system was introduced to replace traditional slaps-on-the-wrist and nights-in-the-cooler, with officers who could listen to offenders' problems to help them end the cycle of negative behaviour.

Pc Ellis said: "It was developed by Australian police inspired by the way New Zealand Maoris discipline their children.

"You ask an offender to talk through what they have done, then ask them who they think it has affected and how.

"That has the instant effect of shaming them, and it can stop people in their tracks: we have had some major successes with it."

With success on his side, Pc Ellis was eventually promoted to the top job in his field – tactical lead on antisocial behaviour for the entire force.

Drawing on his years of experience, he standardised practice for the whole Thames Valley, until being told the post was discontinued and he was sent back to the 'sharp end' on the streets of Oxford.

PC Ellis will retire from Thames Valley Police on December 21: 20 years to the day since he started.