Benjamin Websdale, known to everyone as Ben, was a much-loved dad, friend and police officer whose kindness, sense of humour and enormous enthusiasm for life left an impression on the people around him.

Ben served with Sussex Police for 24 years and experienced a varied policing career, working in roles including response, neighbourhood policing and custody before becoming a Sergeant. Although policing became an enormous part of his life and identity, those who knew him best remember far more than the uniform, because behind it was a devoted dad, a loyal friend, a DJ, a lover of Christmas and somebody Michelle describes simply as one of the kindest people you could ever meet.

A dad who made life fun

Of all the roles Ben had in his life, being a dad was perhaps the one that meant the most to him, because Michelle recalls that he absolutely idolised their daughter, whom he called his “princess” and regarded as his world.

Their relationship was filled with fun, spontaneity and the sort of stories that a child carries with them for the rest of their life. From around the age of four or five, Ben would take her on roller coasters, and on some occasions he would collect her from school and drive straight to Chessington simply so that the two of them could squeeze in an hour of rides before the park closed.

Michelle's description of their relationship is perhaps one of the simplest and most fitting descriptions of Ben himself: “If you could bottle fun, it was Ben.”

A proud police officer

Policing was an important part of Ben's life, and during the earlier years of his career he particularly enjoyed the adrenaline associated with response policing, including blue-light runs and the unpredictable nature of frontline work. As his career progressed he experienced a number of different roles, including response and neighbourhood policing, before becoming a Sergeant and undertaking a rotation into custody.

Ben was initially expected to spend around two years in custody, but those two years eventually became approximately ten because he loved the role and, perhaps most importantly, loved the people with whom he worked. Michelle recalls that Ben had a brilliant team around him, and that sense of camaraderie appears to have been one of the main reasons he remained in custody for so long.

There was, however, one brief attempt at something different when Ben left custody to join CID. Ben was a particularly smart dresser, so in preparation for his new role he went out and bought himself a collection of new suits, only to discover within around three weeks that CID was not for him and return to custody, leaving him with a wardrobe of new suits and a story that his family could later laugh about.

Alongside his operational policing career, Ben spent around nine years as a Police Federation representative, a role he particularly enjoyed because it allowed him to help and support his colleagues from a different perspective. During his career he received numerous awards and commendations, including recognition for his Federation work and for incidents in which lives had been saved, reflecting both the length of his service and the contribution he made to those around him.

The person behind the uniform

Outside policing, music and entertaining people were another significant part of Ben's life, and for many years, including before becoming a police officer, he worked as a DJ at weddings, parties, children's events and other celebrations.

DJing was more than simply additional work for Ben because it gave him another outlet for the sociable and energetic side of his personality, allowing him to be around people and contribute to occasions that were supposed to be happy.

Although Michelle and Ben had separated, their relationship remained unusually close and they continued to speak every day, often exchanging messages ten times or more about everything from important family matters to completely mundane details of everyday life. If something good happened, something bad happened or there was simply something worth sharing, Ben was one of the first people Michelle would contact, which is why she describes him not only as her best friend but as “the glue of our family”.

When policing began to take its toll

In 2022, while working as a Custody Sergeant, Ben dealt with a young man who was subsequently released from police custody and later took his own life. As would ordinarily happen following a death after police contact, Ben's actions were investigated, but the investigation was concluded without further action after it was established that he had done what was required of him.

For Ben, however, knowing that he had acted correctly did not remove the emotional impact of what had happened, and he struggled deeply with the fact that somebody with whom he had interacted in custody had subsequently died. Michelle remembers him questioning whether he could have behaved differently towards the young man, despite her attempts to reassure him that what happened was not his fault.

When the young man's inquest took place in 2024, Ben was required to give evidence, and the experience brought much of that trauma back to the surface. Michelle noticed a significant change in somebody who had previously been so full of life, explaining that his demeanour and outlook changed and that the experience began affecting the way he thought about the people he was releasing from custody.

Ben later described how he would sometimes see the young man's face when booking other people into custody and would think about his death while driving along the motorway. Despite those experiences, he returned to custody because he loved the role, loved his team and had spent around a decade doing a job that had become familiar and important to him.

Only a few months after the inquest, in October 2024, Ben became the subject of a separate misconduct investigation and was arrested. The allegation did not involve Ben physically hurting anybody, and the investigation remained unresolved at the time of his death.

What followed was an extremely difficult period in Ben's life, during which Michelle watched somebody she had known for around two decades change dramatically. She and their daughter continued visiting him, taking food to his house, checking on him and trying to support him through a period in which his mental health had deteriorated significantly.

Policing had become far more than an occupation to him because, after so many years of service, it had become deeply connected to his identity and the life he knew.

One last Christmas

Christmas 2024 looked very different from the Christmases Ben had traditionally created, because the man who ordinarily loved the festive season so much that his house could resemble Santa's Grotto no longer had the same energy or enthusiasm. Even so, he still put up a Christmas tree for his daughter and maintained the tradition they had followed since he and Michelle separated, with their daughter spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with her dad before returning to Michelle later on Christmas Day.

A little over a week later, on 2 January 2025, Ben turned 50, although his birthday coincided with surgery for a fractured ankle and there could therefore be no major celebration. His family took him a cake and some presents and told him that once the boot was off and his leg had recovered, they would all go out together and do something fun to celebrate properly.

Sadly, that celebration never took place, and on 16 January 2025, at the age of 50 and after 24 years of service with Sussex Police, Ben took his own life.

Remembering the whole person

For those who loved Ben, the circumstances surrounding his death cannot be allowed to overshadow the person he had been throughout the rest of his life, because there are decades of memories that existed long before the final months through which he struggled.

Michelle and their daughter continue to talk about him regularly, looking at photographs, telling stories and remembering the things that made them laugh. Some of those memories are deeply meaningful, while others are wonderfully ordinary and silly.

That humour matters because there was so much laughter in Ben's life, and Michelle is determined that their daughter will grow up knowing not simply how her dad died but what a brilliant person he was while he was here.

She will be able to remember the dad who would collect her from school and drive straight to a theme park simply to spend an hour riding roller coasters with her, the man who considered a sledge or a pair of rollerblades perfectly acceptable alternatives for the school run, and the father who called her his princess and regarded her as his absolute world.

His friends and colleagues can remember the police officer who loved the excitement of response policing, the Sergeant who found a home among his custody team, the Federation representative who spent around nine years supporting other officers and the colleague whose service brought awards, commendations and recognition for helping to save lives.

Others will remember the DJ who provided the soundtrack to countless weddings, parties and celebrations, the smart dresser who bought himself a wardrobe of suits for a CID career that lasted only a few weeks, the man whose Christmas tree could appear while most people were still thinking about Halloween, and the friend who was always there when somebody needed him.

The extraordinary turnout following Ben's death reflected the breadth of those relationships, with around 600 people attending his funeral and many more watching online, demonstrating the affection and respect that existed for him across his family, friendships and policing career.

Michelle now speaks publicly about Ben because she wants something meaningful to come from what happened to him, particularly by encouraging changes in the way policing supports officers who experience trauma or find themselves under investigation. In doing so, she has repeatedly emphasised something that can sometimes be lost when an officer's life is reduced to official processes, reports, ranks and collar numbers: behind every uniform is a person with a family and an entire life beyond policing.

For Ben, that life was filled with family, friendships, music, Christmas decorations, roller coasters, parties, laughter, policing and countless everyday conversations with the people closest to him, and those are the memories his family continue to carry with them.

Ben was a Sergeant and a police officer of 24 years, but he was also a devoted dad, a best friend, a DJ, a colleague who supported others, a man with an unmistakable sense of fun and, in Michelle's words, “the kindest person you could ever meet”.

That is the Ben his family want people to remember.