New Essex copper is a thoroughly modern man...

There is a resemblance. Joe Edwards doesn't deny it. In fact, he has been told on more than one occasion he could be mistaken for Robert Carlyle. He doesn't mind. He finds it complimentary.

"But I wish I had his money," he smiled.

Joe Edwards, assistant chief constable with Essex Police, is one very relaxed guy. He sits back in his chair, one foot resting comfortably across his leg, his knee against the table.

There is a confidence, a willingness to disclose who he is and to wrap it up in humour. This man is cool. Rather like his hero.

"Steve McQueen - king of cool. No one to touch him."

There was definite admiration. Was this real? Aren't senior police officers meant to be remote, careful of speech, fidgety with the media? We could have been down the pub.

He wasn't in uniform; his grey suit was verging on the Armani side of trendy. It would have had to have been an upmarket pub.

But back to McQueen.

"I was in the cinema recently when I became interested in one of the trailers. This, I thought, looks just like The Thomas Crown Affair. It was - but a re-make. Why on earth would anyone want to re-make it? It couldn't be done better - McQueen was superb as Thomas Crown."

He enjoys the cinema. He went to see The Mummy the other week.

"Oh, I love that sort of thing. Very tongue-in-cheek and very funny. Great monster, too," he declared.

"The new Star Wars? I may do. But it seems too familiar - little planet threatened by big planet, princess saves the day - been there, done that."

He looks young to be so high up the police ladder. He's 41, and old enough to have been bloodied by the miners' strike in 1984.

"I was sent to Nottingham. What we were seeing was the end of an entire way of life. This wasn't about issues or even jobs. This was about communities being torn apart. And we were in the middle of it.

"I believe many of us became sensitive to what was happening. It was difficult to reconcile. There are many questions which were raised by that strike and its consequences which have never been resolved."

He believes in the right of peaceful protest. He will always uphold that right. If people didn't protest, he would be worried.

"But the issues have changed.

"There has been a very definite shift from the confrontational violence of the 1980s when the police were attacked as a symbol of a society the protesters did not want.

"Now there is an increasing reliance on single issue protests."

Environmental springs to mind. Today, the most high-profile protesters want to save the planet. They are called eco-warriors and appear whenever a new road or bypass is on the horizon. They, literally, take to the trees. It has called for new methods.

"Yes, there are those who officers who are capable of extracting protesters from trees.

"But we are not responsible for enforcing civil trespass laws. That is down to the contractors and local authority. We are there to make sure no breach of the peace or other offences are committed - and that includes ensuring the protesters' right to protest is observed."

Joe Edwards did not have boyhood dreams of a police career. He went to Cardiff University, got a degree in archaeology and went to work as a loft insulator for Redditch Council - as one does!

He did not, he said, have a "fixed view" on a career. But he knew he would not be spending the rest of his life insulating lofts.

"I did that because I needed the money. Then I began to realise I had to sort out a career.

"I was not conscious of having any scientific bent and did not want to work in a office. Then Redditch Police Station had an open day. I went along and spoke to operational officers, not someone sitting behind a desk.

"They had been up since 6am, and I heard first hand of their day-to-day work. It seemed an exciting job, and it meant working with people."

He paused, again smiling.

"Definitely not office work."

His childhood could be described as nomadic. His father was in the armed forces and the family were continually on the move. He reckoned they had been and gone from 20 places by the time he was in his teens. So, no accent and no real roots.

After he saw the light at Redditch he joined Hampshire Constabulary. He chose Hampshire because his wife had just been given a job there. He never left until May this year when he was appointed Essex's new assistant chief constable.

He is jealous of his time with his family. His wife, a teacher, and their two teenage daughters still live in Hampshire. He rents a cottage just outside Chelmsford and, every other weekend, travels the 110 miles back home.

"They won't be moving here just yet. My daughter has just started at sixth form college there and did not want to leave the college or her friends to come here."

She has no intention yet of being an Essex girl. Joe Edwards can understand how she feels. He is missing Hampshire, especially the Downs - he loves walking - and the Isle of Wight coast.

Essex may have a coast, but it won't do. Joe Edwards surfs. And he is obviously getting withdrawal symptoms.

But not from his new job. He is Essex Police's "millennium man", the person in charge of making sure the turn of the century comes in without to many bangs.

And he is very, very confident.

"From just before midnight on January 31, there will be 1,400 police officers on duty throughout Essex. That is four times more police officers than on a typical saturday night.

He will be working as well.

"We don't expect real problems - we'll just be there in case the revelry gets out of hand."

Joe Edwards - a "Millennium" policeman

Picture: STEPHANIE MACKRILL

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.