By Gemma Fraser
Head of content
Linsey Dempsey was just two years old when her armed response officer father was killed on duty by a drunk driver.
Three decades later, Dempsey is a police officer herself – and has ended up following closely in her dad’s footsteps by becoming a firearms officer.
Her inspiring story led to her being asked to represent fallen Scottish officers at the annual National Police Memorial Day in Coventry last month as a candle lighter.
“I was only two and a half when my dad died, so I don’t remember him,” Dempsey told 1919.
“I don’t know who he was as a person, so it can sometimes feel as if I’m just talking about somebody else. It doesn’t feel like it’s my life, or it feels at times like I could be talking about anybody, because I didn’t know who my dad was.”
PC Stuart Simpson – affectionately called ‘Bart’ – died on March 28, 1994, aged just 26, when his police car was struck head-on by a car travelling at high speed on the wrong carriageway of the M8 motorway in Glasgow.
The female driver of the vehicle was also killed in the collision, while Simpson’s colleague was badly injured.
Dempsey said that despite what happened to her dad, joining the police was always something she wanted to do.
With unconditional offers for five different universities under her belt when she left school, she made an agreement with her mum Gillian that she would first get a degree.
After studying criminal justice – and working as a special constable while at university – Dempsey was still determined that a career in policing was what she wanted to pursue, and she became a PC when she was 22.
“My mum always kind of laughs, saying that it must have been in the genes or in the blood or something,” she said.
At the time she joined, there were still people in the force who remembered her dad, and they made a point of getting in touch with her to share stories and memories.
“When I first joined and before I was married, my surname was Simpson, so a few older serving cops who were just about ready to retire got in touch with me.
“When I first started, I had five or six different emails through from a few high-ranking officers who said they’d heard I’d joined, and they worked with my dad, and remembered him.
“I also had a controller contact me on the radio to say they’d worked in the control room the night my dad was killed, and it had always stayed with them, they’d never forgotten it.
“If it wasn’t for other people’s memories of my dad, I wouldn’t have anything. Other people’s photos, videos, newspaper articles, stories, anything anybody can tell me – that’s all I have.”
When she was old enough, Dempsey read through the newspaper articles her grandparents had kept from the time of her dad’s death.
She also looked through the thousands of sympathy cards her mum had been sent, most from complete strangers who wanted to offer words of comfort.
“I can’t remember growing up not knowing. I was always told ‘daddy’s in heaven’ or whatever,” she explained.
“You go through different stages of grief growing up, but it was always explained to me in a very age-appropriate way.
“I grew up a lot quicker than most kids because of the experiences I’d had. And I always said I was going to be a police officer as well.”
While Dempsey had never had a particular desire to become a firearms officer, an incident at work led her to follow in her dad’s footsteps and join the specialist division.
“I had been a response officer in Glasgow and we had a siege basically, a kind of violent incident in my division that we were containing and locking down until we got further support,” she said.
“It was firearms officers who turned up to deal with the siege, so I remember standing there containing the locus for them and when they arrived I just was like, ‘that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I absolutely have to be a part of that’.”
“The last time [my mum] ever saw my dad, he walked out the door with his uniform on and he never ever came home. Now I do that on a regular basis and she has to watch that”
PC Stuart Simpson’s name is one of 350 engraved onto the memorial stones at Police Scotland’s Tulliallan headquarters. Dempsey has visited the memorial with her mum.
She said: “For my mum, every time we do something like that, it just takes her right back. As much as it’s nice to remember, for my mum it’s still very painful to do every year.
“As much as my mum never wanted me to join the police, she’s very proud that I have done.
“Obviously the last time she ever saw my dad, he walked out the door with his uniform on and he never ever came home. Now I do that on a regular basis and she has to watch that. It can’t be easy for her.”