Ex murder detective reveals harrowing part of the job he 'never got used to' despite 12 years in the role
No matter how long you work in a job, there can be some parts of it that you never quite get used to.
Steve Keogh has experienced this firsthand after 12 years working as a murder detective for London's Metropolitan Police at its headquarters, Scotland Yard.
In total, Steve was in the force for a staggering 30 years.
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For most people, seeing a dead body would be an extremely traumatic experience; but for people like Steve who work in the emergency services, it becomes part of your day-to-day job.
"It's about building up resilience"
He wasn't thrown in at the deep end, however. Prior to becoming a murder detective, Steve explained to UNILAD that he built up a resilience to seeing dead bodies over time.
For 10 weeks of his initial training, Steve was 'puppy walked' round the streets with a tutor and was slowly introduced into witnessing dead bodies in 'really controlled circumstances' - for example an elderly person who died of natural causes where police have been called to confirm the death.
"Then they send you to a post mortem just to look so you get more used to it," Steve continued.
"It's about building up resilience - it's like little building blocks. You see a crime scene and then you might see a traffic accident."
Steve was on call at the time of the devastating 7/7 London bombing in 2005 - a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamist terrorists that targeted commuters travelling on London's public transport during the morning rush hour.
"I'd have probably had a breakdown"
56 people sadly lost their lives that day.
"If my 20 year old self that had just left school had been dropped off at the scene on Edgware Road, I'd have probably had a breakdown," Steve admitted.
But because of his training, he was able to perform his role in a professional manner - the same way he did with the murder cases he headed as his career went on.
There was a part of his job that Steve always struggled to handle, however, and that was seeing dead children,
"The ones I remember are the children"
One case that's looked at in his new series, Secrets of a Murder Detective on TRUE CRIME, is that of Sian Blake - a mom-of-two who was killed alongside her two young sons.
Sian and her boys, Zachary, eight, and four-year-old Amon, were stabbed to death by Arthur Simpson-Kent, who was the boys' father.
Sian, who had brief stint on popular British soap EastEnders, was found buried in the back garden with Zachary and Amon three weeks after she was reported missing.
Simpson-Kent is currently serving a whole life sentence behind bars.
Speaking about the harrowing aspect of his job he never got used to, Steve said to UNILAD: "The one thing I never got used to was dead children.
"I couldn't even put a number on how many dead bodies I've seen over over my career. But the ones I remember are the children."
Noting that he'd became accustomed to seeing adult dead bodies, the fact he struggled to see children's dead bodies reassured him that he still had an element of humanity to him and hadn't completed shut off all emotions.
Steve went on to add that the case of Sian Blake and her sons in particular is one of his cases that will 'stay with him forever'.
Explaining why, Steve said: "It boils down, essentially, to the fact those two boys and the circumstances in which they died."
The heartbreaking case is discussed in detail on the first episode of Secrets of A Murder Detective.
Secrets of a Murder Detective airs exclusively on TRUE CRIME (formerly CBS Reality) in the UK from Wednesday, 20th March at 10pm through July with new episodes weekly.
The series will also debut in South Africa on 29th April, and Poland on 20th May.
Topics: Police, Crime, London, True crime, Film and TV
Niamh Shackleton