DCI Roy Perez has always had a professional interest in the most serious of crimes.  Indeed, for his Master’s degree, he wrote his dissertations on ‘Should Criminal Profiling be Integral Part of Modern Day Policing?’ and Death Scene Investigations. 

In his spare time, however, he has two very different interests:

‘When I’m not working, I like to watch TV documentaries about police investigations although I’m not the slightest bit interested in fictional crime stories. On the rare occasions when I get the chance to switch off from crime, my main hobby is building scale models. I’m the founder of Gibraltar Scale Model Society and I specialise in making models of armoured vehicles such as tanks, armoured personnel carriers and self-propelled guns.  I actually enter international competitions in which my models are judged for their build quality and the standard of the paintwork.’

‘In terms of a career, I always wanted to follow in the footsteps of my late father, Francis, and become an officer in the Royal Gibraltar Police,’ explained DCI Roy Perez.  ‘However, at the time when I was leaving school, only Government employees were allowed to apply to the RGP.’

Denied of any way of realising his dream job, Roy left school with few qualifications and found a job in the private sector where he worked for about 10 years until the RGP’s recruitment policy was changed. Finally, in April 1999, he was able to join the Recruit School and to achieve his ambition of becoming a police officer.

‘Considering that I left school with hardly any academic qualifications, I am proud that, in my RGP career, I have gained a Diploma in Criminology, a first degree in Police Studies, my Master’s Degree in Policy, Policing and Leadership (from Portsmouth University) and a Certificate in Terrorism Studies from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland.’

After four years on shift, he got his first taste of work in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and quickly discovered that this was the area of work which was of real interest to him and where he would be happiest.

Roy’s evident dedication and conscientiousness saw him moving up through the ranks of Sergeant and Inspector until, in 2018, he was promoted to Detective Chief Inspector of the Crime Division where, today, he is responsible for the Criminal Investigation Department, Crime Scene Investigators, Drugs Squad, the Domestic Abuse Team, the Safeguarding Team and the Offender Management Team.

‘My biggest job in Crime Division was probably the Boschetti’s Steps killings of March 2015,’ said Roy. ‘It was a case which turned out to be the largest murder investigation in Gibraltar’s modern history. While he was suffering from paranoid delusions, John Shannon had killed his partner Anarda De La Caridad Perez Friman, and two children, one of them only six weeks old.   He had then killed himself.’

In the last few years, Roy has been the Senior Investigating Officer dealing with almost all Gibraltar’s major crimes and he continues to review various unsolved cases going back many years.  ‘My biggest regret is not yet being able to charge someone for the death of the late Michael Montegriffo case,’ he added.

Of course, there are some downsides to being a police officer in Gibraltar. 

‘My biggest bugbear is when, after my team has put a huge amount of work into a case, we don’t get the result we wanted.

‘Another drawback of the job is that it can be difficult for me to switch off when I come home in the evenings.  I’m always conscious that I could be called out at any time so it’s not always easy to relax.  I find that my hobby of scale modelling is useful to take my mind off everything connected with New Mole House.  Of course, I also enjoy spending time with my son who teaches locally and my daughter who has just graduated from University.’

‘Despite being frequently called at all hours of the night, my wife has always given me her full support.  She says that she knew what police life would be like when she married me.’

‘She is very aware that, ‘a good police officer doesn’t sleep well so that everyone else can.’’