SOME people are born to make a difference. Because of Tony Nott people, have not been murdered, women have not been raped, and children have been protected from abuse. When those terrible crimes have occurred he has led the teams which have arrested killers, hunted down attackers and returned to the grieving, the bodies of their loved-ones.

His career began in his native Devon and moved swiftly to the Metropolitan force before swinging westwards again, when he joined Dorset Constabulary in 1976.

Policing is in his blood and possibly in his soul. In a study straight out of Inspector Morse he proudly shows off the framed copy of the illustrated Police News, which depicts his great-great grandfather, Sgt Abraham Nott, arresting officer in the notorious case of murderer John “Babbacombe” Lee. “The Man They Couldn’t Hang,” he smiles.

The complete Sherlock Holmes sits on the bookshelves and a clock ticks amiably on the mantelpiece. It’s a million miles from the killing fields of Kosovo, where he elected to work after retiring from the Dorset force.

“Like everybody else we were watching television in the 1990s and saw the horrendous bombing of Sarajevo. Like most people we were outraged at the lack of action and the murders,” he says. “I wanted to go out there on a food convoy but couldn’t because I got stuck doing a political conference. Then the opportunity came up in 2000 to help with the exhumations, so I took it.”

He lead the British forensic team for two months, filling in for the permanent leader, investigating mass graves and summary executions and, as he puts it: “Seeing sheer murder; the very worst that humans can do.

“Some victims were machine-gunned in the back, others against walls. Some were shot a number of times; in the groin, left and right in the chest. The pathologist found there was a gunshot under the chin, the bullet tracking up through the brain, sending the whole back of the head cavity blowing off.

“It’s like making the sign of the cross on them, bearing in mind these were Orthodox Serbs. Allegedly Christian.”

In Bosnia he worked for the United Nations prosecutor Carlo Ponti. He learned that families had often buried their dead where they had been killed and that victims were frequently the relatives of people the gunmen were hunting.

“If they couldn’t find who they were looking for, they’d kill the parents. Or the children.”

Excavations began with a digger, then “the British bomb disposal team would check the bodies for booby traps. We’d dig to the rough area above the body, then our officers would free it.”

The cadaver would be photographed in situ, bagged in the grave and the ever-watchful relatives were given the opportunity to bear it to the Royal Marines’ lorry. “It was so they felt a part of what was going on,” he says. “We almost encouraged it, in a way.”

This information is given as he gave evidence in so many trials; professionally and without betraying his feelings. But the horror of being confronted with up to 12 rotting bodies a day left its terrible mark.

“They were either skeletal or still with a considerable amount of flesh on, in an awful, decayed state,” he remembers. “They are black and the smell is awful.”

One incident is seared into his memory. A Muslim nurse who had been working abroad at the time of her brother’s murder, asked to see his body.

“This was a skeleton we were talking about so I said she couldn’t.

“I said: ‘Your brother’s soul is in heaven and can you try and remember him in happier times?’ But she insisted.”

At this point his voice cracks. “Having tried to dissuade her – I’d got no qualifications on what to do – I thought ‘Let her see him’. The mortician from Glasgow laid the skeleton out pristine, with all the bones in place and the clothes to one side.

“The nurse came in. She had brought a Muslim linen cloth and she carefully wrapped the body. Then she picked the skull up and kissed it and cried. That was so hard to watch but I was so glad I did and she was much happier. It was part of saying goodbye.”

He moved on to Iraq where he became deputy chief police adviser there, to the British policing mission, working in the Ministry of Interior and living on a military camp. During that time of insurgency four or five car bombs exploded every day. “Our workplace was hit by rockets, we had two sets of suicide bombers and I carried a side arm and had my own personal protection team.”

In Palestine he helped US forces establish a police service for the Pales-tinian authority. “The Americans are actually making a huge effort to help there and they are being very even-handed in the way they deal with it,” he says.

He has only been able to do all this, of course, because of the expertise he developed as the highly-respected head of Bournemouth CID during the 1990s.

He remembers all his cases; the memory of the killing of teacher Geoffrey Du Rose still distresses him and he remains repulsed by the “sheer evil” of double killer Lee Baker, who decapitated his girlfriend’s mother. “Lee Baker was unquestionably evil,” he says. “His attitude to killing two people and trying to kill two more was like stepping on an ant. Some people have absolutely no conscience and he was one of them.”

He is most satisfied to have helped bring to justice Peter Taylor, the sinister Bournemouth hotelier who murdered his wife, Monica, and secretly disposed of the body.

Taylor’s 1993 conviction remains one of the very few to have been obtained without the evidence of a corpse.

He is equally happy, however, to have been able to prove innocence.

“I’m very pleased to put bad people in prison but I’m equally pleased that I’ve been able to investigate traumatic incidents and by producing all the facts, show no one was criminally liable,” he says. “It’s the pursuit of the truth which is the most important thing we do.”

His drive comes from two things, he says: his Christian faith and his family, in particular, his beloved wife, Judith.

“I was brought up by nuns and priests who knocked me all over the place but it was drummed into me that we have to love one another and the only way I could fulfil my Christian duty was to serve the public,” he declares.

He insists his success is down to Judith’s support, especially during the abroad years, and was delighted to take her to Bucking-ham Palace for the MBE ceremony. “I was overwhelmed with pride,” he says.

As the consummate modern copper – Britain has the best police in the world and Dorset is one of the top British forces, he says – it’s surprising to hear him admitting a soft spot for the fictional, unreconstructed, Detective Inspector Gene Hunt.

“All the old policemen see the drive in his character,” he explains. “The police that I joined was a vocation and it should be. I’ve lived and breathed it.

“As a policeman you live and breathe the opportunity to help the public and to do your best every day.”