Covering the demanding beat of Vincent Square, which is a short walk from Buckingham Palace and Parliament, Sergeant Ronnie Henderson’s neighbourhood policing team is responsible for approximately 100,000 daily visitors and 15,000 residents.
Through an operation aimed at reducing drug dealing and the anti-social behaviour that accompanies it, they’ve cut ASB-related incidents in the area by more than 60%, down from almost 140 a month to around 50.
Detection of drug offences has risen by 75% over the same period, with more than 30 offenders charged with possession or supply.
Operation Varenna has been running since July 2025, with Ronnie being one of its operational leads.
He said: “It has a number of elements – high-visibility patrols, plain-clothes operations to target drug dealers, as well as community reassurance.
“What’s also been good to see is a decrease in anti-social behaviour calls in that same period. A lot of the harm from drug offending isn’t just the dealing itself, it’s the associated social nuisance that comes with it – the kind that’s visible on the street and has an impact on communities.
“At the same time, we were doing a big public information push on how to report crime and anti-social behaviour. So, while we’ve been encouraging people to tell us if there’s an issue, we’ve also seen an overall decrease, which suggests people are letting us know about it and hopefully there’s also less of it happening.
“I’m really pleased to have led on that and to see that impact at a hyper-local level.”
Ronnie joined the Metropolitan Police Service eight years ago, and despite having such an impact, policing wasn’t always his plan.
He studied ancient history at university and worked in recruitment when he graduated. He came across Police Now’s graduate programme, almost by accident, at a careers fair.
“I definitely didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to be a police officer,” he said. “I got chatting to one of the teams, found out a bit more and quite speculatively put an application in, and didn’t think too much of it at the time. Eight years later, I’m still loving it.”
Police Now offers the only graduate entry route into policing. Neighbourhood policing is one of the specialisms it regularly recruits for, with participants completing a residential academy before being sent directly into communities and given responsibility at the earliest stage of their career.
Ronnie’s first posting as a PC was in Pimlico and Victoria, the same ward he now leads as sergeant – having returned to neighbourhood policing last year after three years on a response team in Westminster.
He said: “It’s been quite nice to come full circle. Some of the community members are still the same.”
Ronnie is now a Syndicate Lead at Police Now, helping to train future neighbourhood police officers at the Police Now residential academy.
For anyone considering a career in policing, Ronnie’s advice is straightforward: “Absolutely go for it, if it sparks your interest even just a little bit. There are very few careers where you have the power to affect real change in people’s lives.
“You’ll go home most days thinking you’ve done something positive.”
About Police Now:
Police Now is a Times Top 100 Graduate Employer and the only national graduate entry route into policing. We recruit, train and develop graduates to become exceptional police officers and detectives via our National Graduate Programme. Graduates on the programme train in one of four specialisms: neighbourhoods, detective, economic crime, or counter terrorism.
Our mission is to transform communities, reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, and increase the public’s confidence in the police service by recruiting, developing and inspiring outstanding and diverse individuals to be leaders in society and on the policing frontline.
Police Now consistently recruits stronger diversity to our programme than policing achieves nationally, including more women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. We typically attract those who had not considered a career in policing before – bringing new perspectives and ideas into the service and driving policing to become more representative of the communities it serves. As an independent organisation working in partnership with policing, with a strong graduate brand, we are uniquely positioned to deliver this essential difference to policing.
Police Now was originally founded in the Metropolitan Police Service in 2014 and attested our first cohort of police officers in 2015. We are now an independent not-for-profit organisation – funded by participating police forces and the Home Office – and have partnered with 37 police forces across England and Wales to deliver our accredited training.
Police Now continues to work with our officers once they have completed the programme, offering promotion and progression support and dedicated coaching for its alumni community.
