Keith Hellawell was born and brought up in Yorkshire and, after spending some years working as a minter, has been a policeman all his life. In the seventies he served in Northern Ireland, and h became Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police in 1983. Thereafter he as successively Deputy Chief Constable, Humberside Police, Chief Constable, Cleveland Police, and Chief Constable, West Yorkshire Police. He was made New Labour's `Drug Tsar' in 1998, and resigned his position in July 2002. He is married with three children and lives in Yorkshire.