A DETECTIVE who helped solve a number of high profile murder cases during a career panning 48 years has announced his retirement.
John Ahern, 65, joined the Metropolitan Police aged 17 and patrolled the Old Street area of Shoreditch, before becoming a Walthamstow-based detective four years later.
He went on to serve in a number of boroughs and in the early 1970s was part of a team which caught a gang responsible for a series of robberies and rapes in the Woodford and Loughton areas.
After a stint investigating international company fraud, which took him as far afield as Florida and the Bahamas, he landed his dream job as head of a murder team.
In 1998 he investigated the killing of Richard Cajee, 30, who was found lying in a pool of blood at his home in Grove Road, South Woodford, after being shot four times in the back of the head.
Mr Cajee’s wife, Farah, and his step father Yusef Ali of Markhouse Avenue, Walthamstow, were later convicted of his murder.
The court heard how Mrs Cajee and Ali were having an affair and hatched a plan to kill Mr Cajee in order to cash in on an insurance policy and run away together.
Mr Ahern said: "That one stays with me because Farah was the most manipulative woman I ever met. She played the grieving widow so well and went to great lengths to concoct alibis for herself and her lover.
“But she couldn't conceal the firearms residue on her car steering wheel and was subsequently convicted."
Mr Ahern first retired in 2000, but was back at work two days later after joining a new Woodford-based team set up following the Stephen Lawrence enquiry to look again at unsolved cases.
The team revisited 230 cold cases, with the recent conviction of Wilbert Dyce a notable success.
Dyce, 54, was last year convicted of murdering Norma Richards and her two young daughters in Dalston in 1982 after new DNA evidence was uncovered.
Mr Ahern said: "These families never ever forget the death of their loved ones and the fact the Met is still interested is some comfort to them.
"The unsolved cases from my time as a Detective Chief Inspector do stay with me and I feel uncomfortable I couldn't solve them.”
"I have had a wonderful career and worked with really dedicated detectives which enabled me to pursue the job I had always wanted to do.
"It's been 48 years of my life. But it's time to go. I'm looking forward to doing other things."
Mr Ahern has a grown-up son and daughter and four grand-children.
