‘Kojak’, tough cop with a tender heart, loses cancer fight

One of the most famous policemen of the colonial era, Detective Chief Inspector Derek Bere, has died at his home in Spain after a 12-month fight with leukaemia.

When he retired in 1980, it was the end of an era in law enforcement in Hong Kong. Bere was among a wave of recruits who entered police training school in the 1950s, many of them tough former soldiers or veterans of Britain’s post-colonial wars and withdrawals.

Working out of the decaying old station in Shamshuipo, which housed the Homicide Squad, ‘‘Taffy’’ Bere operated in turbulent times and was among a group of officers who spearheaded the on-the-street drive against a crime rate that was rising to scary proportions.

‘‘Bere’s the name, murder’s the game,’’ the voice would boom as the bar-room door burst open. In would stride an immense, burly, totally bald man wearing a shirt large enough to pitch as a tent.

No other person in Hong Kong history has been pictured so frequently kneeling beside the hacked bodies of murder victims.

Nicknamed ‘‘Kojak’’ after the bald American TV cop of the 1970s played by Telly Savalas, Taffy was instantly recognised when arriving at a crime scene. ‘‘Kojak, Kojak,’’ the crowds would cry.

‘‘That Telly Savalas has a lot to answer for,’’ Taffy would grumble into his San Miguel.

Like many policemen of the old school, he had genuine compassion for crime victims. In an era when the authorities were trying to downplay the role of illegal immigrants in violent street crimes, he said bluntly that newly arrived illegals were to blame for many murders. He knew. He arrested them, charged them and saw them convicted.

He was passionate about victims. Just before he retired, this tough cop was almost in tears as he told me about a 23-year-old girl who resisted when grabbed by two knife-wielding robbers as she left her home in Mei Foo.

‘‘They stabbed her through the chest with such force that the knife went in her back and came out her front,’’ Taffy said quietly. ‘‘I would dearly love to clear up this case.’’

Strangely, he felt sympathy for some killers. Most murders, he would explain, were robberies that went wrong, or domestic arguments that flared into violence, or fights between tenants or between friends playing cards.

He had no such feelings for triad killers, extortionists or people who killed for profit.

His boundless energy was matched only by a limitless capacity for San Miguel.

On one occasion when the officers’ mess on the 20th floor of police headquarters was packed with the usual Friday night crowd, there were visiting policemen present from Britain and Australia.

Erupting into the room with his customary exuberance, Taffy Bere gave his drinking cry: ‘‘Yabba dabba doo.’’ It was a joke among his colleagues but came as a surprise to visitors.

‘‘Who’s that?’’ one asked.

‘‘Oh, that’s Taffy Bere. He’s chief of homicide. A good cop.’’

He was, too.

Derek Bere: ‘‘murder’s the game’’

Article Name:‘Kojak’, tough cop with a tender heart, loses cancer fight

Publication:South China Morning Post

Author:Kevin Sinclair