Being a detective in south London is a busy sufficient job, not to mention combining it with skilled boxing. However Julia Lee is a police officer, a coach for at-risk youths, and a professional fighter.
Her most uncommon profession has taken her from learning at Oxford College to working as a lawyer earlier than becoming a member of the Metropolitan Police and combating little one exploitation in south London.
She was additionally a two-time Elite champion as an novice boxer and can have her fourth skilled bout on Saturday in Tolworth.
Lee, initially from Korea, gave up a task as a lawyer for an funding fund to affix the police.
“Being a detective has been a real dream of mine since I was really young. I think you always have to just follow your heart,” she informed Sky Sports activities.
“[Otherwise] it results in a lifetime of discontentment and remorse. So I believed whereas I’ve nonetheless obtained time I higher pursue these items.
“I work in the child exploitation team,” she defined. “It is a two-pronged, safeguarding, safety and investigating, prosecution function.
“You’re looking at young people under 18 who are still developing, who may have come from backgrounds or have had experiences that have shaped who they are now and how they interpret things and they’re very, very vulnerable.
“They only get fully pulled out of schooling, pulled out of regular childhood, expertise plenty of tough conditions, plenty of violence, get injured and even lose their lives.”
If she’d at all times had ambitions of police work, her involvement in boxing got here extra at random. Lee had turn into a aggressive boxer when she was learning at Oxford College. “I have no idea where it came from but it almost feels like boxing chose me,” she mentioned. “It kind of came out of nowhere.”
She was out of the game for nearly seven years when she practised regulation. However when she joined the police, she started to field severely once more. So severely, actually, that she gained the nationwide Elite championships in two weight courses.
“It was unfinished business so when I joined the police, I thought they must have a boxing club,” Lee mentioned.
“I remember watching the Elites going: ‘They’re so fantastic, they’re amazing, I wonder if I’ll ever get to that kind of stage.’ And then within four months, I was straight into the Elites from the Devs [the development or novice championships]. I won that and then I was [thinking] this is absolutely crazy.
“The yr after I gained at a better weight class. So it has been three consecutive years of absolute insanity.
“At the end of the line, there was nowhere really for me to go. Because I was Korean I couldn’t really represent England or Great Britain so I thought the only way to continue evolving was turning professional.”
Lee returned to boxing when she joined the police
She has managed to mix her boxing together with her profession within the police pressure, although her proficiency as a fighter will not be one thing she’s had to make use of immediately as a police officer.
“I have never had to employ boxing skills, but I think with any sport or a certain level of athleticism, you have an aura of the way you carry yourself is different and you’re more confident. And that actually makes you de-escalate situations better than if you were hot-headed and just wanted to get into a fight,” Lee mentioned.
“So I think you know how to pick fights, because you know if it comes to it you can take care of yourself.”
However she has merged her two careers by beginning a boxing membership for at-risk younger folks.
“That’s where I see the young people going as well, because before they did boxing they might pick fights on the street because they need to get the aggression out somehow. But once they start boxing, they realise what fighting is really about. [They think] I really don’t need this,” she mentioned.
“You don’t need to prove yourself. Which I think where often the urge to fight comes from is to prove yourself in a non-life threatening situation.”
Lee wins her third professional bout at York Corridor
She defined: “Sometimes I will work with kids I come across in policing and then bring them to the gym and then continue my work there in two different contexts. That’s how I manage to marry them together. It takes a lot of time.
“I am very drained plenty of the time, but it surely’s worthwhile,” Lee continued. “The kid exploitation group was truly actually excellent for that as a result of I knew that I might be working immediately with younger people who find themselves in tough conditions and likewise be capable to introduce them to boxing in a method that was extra pure than only a referral. That was a part of my motivation to create the Rebels novice boxing membership. As a result of I used to be annoyed on the transient nature of a number of the boxing camps and initiatives that had been out there.”
The aim of the project is to give those vulnerable young people more alternatives.
“Generally they’re excluded from faculty and so they’re in an in-between time or they could be ready for an additional faculty to start out or they may have been completely excluded,” she said. “They usually exit on the road and meet folks in the identical state of affairs and infrequently affect one another to do issues which may not be essentially the most wise selections.
“So we try and give them somewhere where they can come for free, do something productive, be fit, get good training, and go home really tired so you won’t want to go out again.
“I feel when it comes to the bond that we’ve constructed, it is actually robust. A few of them have come to my very own fights as properly,” Lee added. “Hopefully, we will hold constructing on that.”
Lee additionally runs a boxing membership for the younger folks she comes throughout in her police work
The problems she is confronting as a police detective and boxing coach have gotten extra advanced.
“Even if they are engaging in criminal activity, you can’t just look at them as criminals, you have to consider them as victims as well,” she mentioned.
“There are so many different things to consider and your ultimate aim is to protect and allow that child to thrive whether it’s extricating them from a criminal environment, through even prosecution sometimes, that might be the only way. There are so many things to consider.
“I feel that understanding is basically bettering however the dangers are additionally constantly evolving. With issues like social media it is virtually unimaginable to maintain in time with the dangers they’ve each day.
“It is very difficult, it is high risk and we just have to try our best and hope to connect, with at least some of them.”
Watch the finals of the Manchester Field Cup reside on Sky Sports activities‘ digital platform on Sunday.
