“The police is broken,” says former officer turned best-selling author Jay Darkmoore — and he should know. After a decade on the frontline, he’s now exposing the system’s cracks, secrets and corruption in his new memoir The Job’s Fcked: Secret Diary of a Police Officer.
Speaking to a packed audience at Leigh Library, Darkmoore shared raw and often unsettling stories from his time in uniform, from officers driven out by pressure to a culture that values statistics over judgment. His talk was part of Off the Page, a new monthly library series exploring the power of storytelling and the realities that inspire it.
Darkmoore opened his talk with the story of Gareth, a man who joined the police after experiencing a domestically violent relationship, believing the force would be a source of justice and protection. With a father who had served in the police for 30 to 40 years, it seemed the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. However, Gareth’s story soon took a darker turn, revealing a career clouded by naivety and disillusionment with the system. What the audience didn’t realise at first was that Gareth’s story was in fact Jay Darkmoore’s own.
He recounted a moment from his first shifts on the job, when a colleague asked, “Do you trust the police?” The question was met with unreserved positivity, but a seed of doubt was planted when the colleague added, “Just wait, you’ll change your mind. Trust me, you will.”