British cop in cricket murder accustomed to big cases

KINGSTON, Mar 29 (Reuters) Mark Shields, the British police veteran heading the probe into the murder of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, moved to Jamaica to help quell the island's bloody gang violence and police corruption after a career of high-profile crime-fighting in Britain.

From international terrorism to a kidnap plot against footballer David Beckham's wife, the tall, silver-haired Shields has plenty of experience handling big cases like the strangulation killing of Woolmer, one of the world's most famous cricket coaches.

Now 49, Shields started his career with the City of London police in 1976 and headed the force's special branch before he turned 30.

He helped manage London's controversial Ring of Steel project to surround the city core with closed circuit television and other measures as protection against the IRA and similar threats.

HIGH-PROFILE Shields's resume includes work against East European drug-runners, Russian mobs, money laundering and counter-terrorism operations.

At Scotland Yard, he moved quickly up the ranks to chief superintendent.

''I've had pretty high-profile cases,'' he told Reuters in an interview. ''I've worked in many parts of the world before, ranging from drug trafficking to kidnapping ... so it's not new to me to do this sort of work.'' In 2002 he led an operation that foiled an alleged plot to kidnap ex-Spice Girl Victoria Beckham.

Shields got a taste of Jamaican crime working against ''Yardies,'' gangs responsible for drug-running and violence in Britain.

He came to the Caribbean island temporarily in the early part of the decade to help an operation against surging extra-judicial killings of civilians by members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Shields retired from Scotland Yard and took a top post with the Jamaican police two years ago.

Although the hiring of ex-Scotland Yard officials has sparked some grumbling in the ranks, Shields has become popular with Jamaicans and is credited with helping improve the image of a department held in suspicion by the Jamaican people.

''There is a new sense of professionalism emerging in the officer ranks of the police force aided by the culture of correctness introduced by Scotland Yard,'' former Prime Minister Edward Seaga wrote in a newspaper editorial after Shields had been in town for a year.

Jamaicans cheered when the island's murder rate, for a long time one of the highest in the world, dropped more than 20 percent last year.

In the wake of Woolmer's murder on March 18, the confident, no-nonsense deputy police commissioner has become one of the world's most famous cops, his face appearing in newspapers and on television across the globe.

He does not revel in the new celebrity but he expresses no discomfort with it.

''It's unfortunately unavoidable. I can hide and I can do my job and therefore I will not get the assistance of the media.

And unfortunately because it was World Cup cricket and these tragic circumstances, I suppose it's part of the job.

''But it's something I've been used to. It's happened before.

And it will probably happen again.'' ''It's a very minor problem as far as I'm concerned. The focus is on catching the killer of Bob Woolmer.'' REUTERS PDS BST0435