Ian Parry (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Ian Parry

8:46am Thursday 4th February 2010

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Former Devizes policeman Ian Parry, who lived in Hankerton near Malmesbury, died on Sunday in a car crash in Trinidad.

The 47-year-old moved to the Caribbean in December 2008 to help train local police officers. He had earlier been seconded there by Wiltshire Police and returned after he left the force.

Mr Parry was born in Dorset and went to school at Taunton School where he began his life long love affair with rugby.

From school he followed his father’s footsteps into engineering, signing up for a course at the London Polytechnic.

However less than a year later he left and joined the police force in Salisbury.

His brother Guy Parry said: “He wanted to do something more active and get into community life so he joined the Wiltshire Police.”

The youngest of three siblings Mr Parry was married for a short time in his twenties but it ended in divorce.

He never had children but was very close to his sister’s children, Lola, Tom and Ellie, who live in Yeovil.

Mr Parry, a workaholic, served across the UK with the National Crime Squad and further afield on a secondment with the UN in Sarajevo.

Guy Parry said his brother worked hard and played hard.

“I went to visit him in Trinidad and he would get up at 6am and go to work, coming back at around 8pm,” he said.

“I’d be begging him to let me go to bed around midnight but he was still wanting to party into the early hours.”

He added: “To save him remembering people’s names he call women ‘darling’, ‘gorgeous or ‘sweetheart’ and men would be ‘big fella’.”

Former superintendent Peter Russ, who lives at Coate, near Devizes, had known Mr Parry for over 24 years.

He said: “I first knew Ian when I was a sergeant in Salisbury and our paths crossed many times over the years.

“He was a very likeable man with a great sense of humour. He had an effervescent character and when he walked into a room you really knew someone had arrived.

“These were among the qualities that won him the job in Trinidad.”

Mr Parry’s funeral takes place tomorrow in Trinidad.

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