I chased gang leader into a hut ... he picked up a baby and threw it at me

TOP Scots cop Mike Dowie survived a bombing attempt and having a BABY thrown at him during four decades of busting evil crimelords in the Far East.

Mike, 56, retired last week after 37 years as Hong Kong's most senior ex-pat officer - where his uncompromising investigating saw Triad mobsters nickname him Colonel Gadaffi.


The Edinburgh-born lawman received countless death threats as he probed murders, high-profile kidnappings, counterfeiting, fraud and drug trafficking.
I chased gang leader into a hut ... he picked up a baby and threw it at me
But one of his clearest memories is of a sick gangland boss picking up an infant and hurling it at him as the shady thug tried to escape arrest.

Mike said: "We were searching for riot instigators inside a camp that held Vietnamese boatpeople - and I was spotted by the ringleader, who immediately fled.

"He ran into a hut and as we chased him he picked up a baby of about nine months and threw it. Luckily, I was able to catch the tot, but it could have been killed."

Mike was also PLEASED when furious underworld chiefs tried to blow him up with a homemade bomb
Mike emigrated in 1974 to join one of the world's largest metropolitan forces, which employs 27,000, and at the time was trying successfully to stamp out corruption in its ranks.

He said: "I wanted to be a police officer, and at the end of my last week in the force I still wanted to be a police officer."

Mike quickly graduated to become a detective in the notorious Wong Tai Sin district, where he ordered a crackdown on the booming trade in ketamine - the animal tranquilliser used as a recreational drug by humans.

He also probed financial cons, corruption and even a sickening attack on a Down's Syndrome centre, before eventually rising to become Senior Assistant Commissioner.

For the past six years he has headed a police service quality scheme that aims to make officers more responsible to the public.

He said: "No organisation in Hong Kong is under as much scrutiny as the police force.

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"But we are not angels, we are not robots programmed to be perfect.

"The public sometimes have a very naive and simplistic understanding of the challenges.

"Officers need a bit of flexibility. If everything had to follow order and procedure it could take away initiative and it could take away passion." Mike, who speaks fluent Cantonese, now plans to stay in Hong Kong and help rehabilitate young offenders - as well as indulging in his passion for Feng Shui and taking up bowls and cricket.

He said: "I received encouragement from colleagues and my wife, who is a Hong Kong Chinese, did not want to go.

"I feel fortunate, happy and satisfied with my career."

Posted in: Business-Economic,World News