Owen Evitts was a Royal Navy veteran, a police officer, a dog handler, a husband and a father, but those titles alone do not capture the man his family and former colleagues remember.

He was brave, fiercely loyal, generous with his time and possessed a sense of humour that could be wildly inappropriate but was rarely malicious. His wife, Amanda, remembers someone who could be taken anywhere and would quickly find a way to make people laugh, while former colleagues have described the reassurance they felt when Owen arrived at a difficult incident with his police dog, because when things were going wrong, he was somebody you wanted beside you.

A life of service

Owen's life of service began when he joined the Royal Navy at just 16, initially serving as a radar plotter before completing the training to become a Royal Navy diver. Amanda remembers him as an intelligent and determined man who did not necessarily have a long list of academic qualifications, but who had an extraordinary ability to achieve whatever he set his mind to.

After leaving the Navy, Owen followed his father into policing, with his father having also served as a police dog handler. Owen joined West Midlands Police and served on the Operational Support Unit, working in demanding environments including football matches and incidents of public disorder, before eventually achieving his ambition of becoming a police dog handler himself.

His career later took him into specialist dangerous-dog work, where he became one of the country's early Dangerous Dog Liaison Officers and developed sufficient expertise to act as an expert witness. Although some aspects of the role were difficult for him, particularly when seized dogs ultimately had to be destroyed, Amanda remembers that this reflected something fundamental about Owen's character, because despite his tough exterior, he hated seeing anybody or anything treated unfairly.

The man behind the uniform

Policing became an enormous part of Owen's identity, and Amanda remembers just how much he loved being a police officer. He threw himself into the job with passion and was recognisable to many of the people he encountered, particularly through his work at football matches and on the Operational Support Unit, while colleagues knew him as somebody who would not shy away when situations became difficult.

Away from the uniform, Owen loved walking, particularly family trips to the Lake District, as well as rugby, his dogs and travelling with Amanda and their daughter, Grace. He was also the kind of person who would volunteer when something needed doing in the village and who found enormous satisfaction in helping other people.

Years later, that desire to serve found another outlet when Owen became involved with a group transporting humanitarian aid towards Ukraine. He and Grace travelled together in vehicles carrying supplies, and Amanda remembers seeing glimpses of the old Owen returning during those journeys, because the combination of teamwork, logistics, camaraderie and people working together for a worthwhile purpose gave him something that had been missing from his life.

When everything changed

Owen's life changed profoundly following an incident involving his police dog which resulted in a lengthy criminal investigation and prosecution. The proceedings lasted around 18 months before Owen was ultimately acquitted, but Amanda believes the experience left lasting psychological scars which did not disappear when the court case ended.

Although Owen attempted to return to policing and received counselling, Amanda recalls that he had become deeply fearful of further action by Professional Standards and struggled to readjust to the organisation he had once loved. He was eventually medically retired from policing on the grounds of ill health, bringing his career to an end in circumstances very different from those he might once have imagined.

For somebody who had entered the Royal Navy at 16 before moving into policing, losing that career also meant losing much of the structure, camaraderie, belonging and identity that had defined his adult life. Amanda remembers watching friends eventually retire from policing with leaving celebrations and presentations while Owen had never experienced that same sense of closure, and although he would never have wanted the pomp and ceremony, she believes the camaraderie and acknowledgement would have mattered to him.

Life after policing

Over the years that followed, Owen increasingly struggled to find his place outside policing, becoming more isolated and angry and eventually developing problems with alcohol. Some friendships disappeared and family life became increasingly difficult, while Amanda watched the funny, generous and sociable man she had married gradually become someone she sometimes struggled to recognise.

Owen later took his own life, leaving Amanda, Grace and the people who loved him to make sense not only of his death, but of the many years that had preceded it. For his family, however, his death cannot be allowed to become the defining fact of his life, because there was so much more to Owen than the circumstances in which they lost him.

Remembering Owen

Amanda remembers the young man who joined the Royal Navy, the diver who pushed himself to achieve, the police officer who loved his job, the dog handler whose arrival reassured his colleagues, the volunteer who wanted to help others, the dad who travelled across Europe with his daughter carrying humanitarian aid and the husband whose terrible jokes could transform an awkward moment into laughter.

Perhaps the simplest description of Owen is also the one that says the most about him. Amanda remembers him as a very kind and very brave man who could undoubtedly irritate people and wind them up, but when somebody was genuinely in trouble, Owen was the person you would want to see walking through the door.