A COUNTY businesswoman has spoken of Margaret Thatcher’s influence over her decision to break cultural boundaries and join the Metropolitan police in the 1980s.

Rayeesa Asghar-Sandys was born into a strict Muslim family in Balham, South London, before she spent some time in India living with her grandparents, returning to London a four-year-old.

Rayeesa, who now lives in Mordiford, cites Margaret Thatcher’s influence over what turned out to be a long and successful career in the Metropolitan police where she worked on the beat.


She said: “I had a very strict upbringing and for me to even contemplate a career as a police officer was shunned upon by my family, they all expected me to be a doctor or a lawyer and marry and settle down.


“But I wanted more, I wanted to change people’s lives and help and protect those in society I would never have had contact with.”


Rayeesa’s work involved policing special events, being on several crime squads, murder squads and working with child protection and domestic violence.


“Maggie Thatcher showed me that I could do whatever I put my heart and mind into. She was a passionate woman in what she believed and not much came in the way,” she said.


“That inspired me and led me to have a 17-year career in the police, which I absolutely loved. I learned so much about life and people and how we all have choices in life.”


Rayeesa left the Metropolitan Police in 2003 when she and her family moved from London to Herefordshire.


She is now a successful businesswoman and runs an award winning Authentic Indian cookery school from her farmhouse in Hereford.


She said: “I grew up watching and hearing Maggie in the news and papers and was so inspired at her strength as the Leader of our Country.


“I didn’t always understand the politics, but I understood that as a woman in a man’s world – which it very much was then – she broke the mould.”