I'M taking part in an Aye Write!

panel featuring crime authors who used to work in the justice system. I'd studied medieval history at Glasgow University, and gave thought to becoming a cop. There was a graduate induction course with Merseyside Police and I went out with different departments there. The rank-and-file said, "Don't sign up - we've got guys who've been promoted beyond their capabilities, chief inspectors with five years' service who've never worked on the ground," so I joined Strathclyde Police, on the bottom rung, in July 1989.

It was a complete culture shock. I was sent to Springburn and, mostly, the Blackhill station. It was a busy time - you had the Paul Ferris story and a big local drugs problem. There were still guys around who'd gone blind because they'd drunk undistilled spirits stolen from a train back in the 1950s.

There were a lot of good guys on my shift but there were also some ex-soldiers who'd served in Northern Ireland and didn't take kindly to a new, fresh-faced graduate. At break times I wouldn't play cards, preferring to read the sports pages, which didn't go down well. They said I was a "grass for the brass".

One senior cop, one of the ex-soldiers, made my life an absolute misery. One day I was on the beat with him. You were always meant to know which street you were in without needing to look at the sign. But I got one street wrong, and the next thing I knew, he was holding a flick knife under my chin. "What's going to happen if I slit your throat and dump you here?" he asked. "You'd just be another graduate probationer who hadn't listened to a senior cop." That was freaky.

One section sergeant took delight in sending me out on my own down Alexandra Parade or in Blackhill early in my probation. He wanted to see if I would get a kicking. I would confront youths causing disorder and would radio for back-up, which just drew attention to the fact I was an inexperienced probationer out on my own.

Maybe the worst incident was when I found myself in a kangaroo court at Springburn station. They told me that if I turned up for the Sunday night shift, I'd have my legs broken and I'd be dumped in the Campsies. It was grim stuff.

I wasn't enjoying the job and knew I needed another career, but I took my mother's advice and stuck it out. There were lots of changes in personnel and things began to improve for me. One detective constable, a legendary plainclothes officer, took me under his wing. In my career with the force I worked in different areas, ending up at Pitt Street HQ, then at Alexandria Police office, before leaving in 2001.

Don't get me wrong - there were lots of good moments in my probationary period. Funny moments, too. One bank holiday, myself and two other probationers turned up at Cleopatra's nightclub. It was queued out the door so we flashed our warrant cards and said we were Blackhill CID, pursuing car thieves. We got in, but we ended up the worse for wear, and the staff eventually twigged.

Twenty-six years later, I wonder sometimes if the bad stuff happened, but it did. In time, I got into sports journalism and started writing crime books. My fourth, The Shift, is set in the 1980s and features some of the things that happened to me. I've waited a long time to write a novel that would let me tap in to the experiences and, in some cases, the misery of my being a probationer. There aren't too many crime novelists who can say that.

Inside Job: Police and Probation Officers Turn to Crime is at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, at 6pm on April 22. Visit ayewrite.com.

Russell Leadbetter