Paul McKeever - Telegraph.co.uk

At the Federation's annual conference last spring, he orchestrated an uncomfortably noisy reception of jeers and heckling for Jacqui Smith's Conservative successor, Theresa May — "stage-managing the ritual annual attempt to humiliate the Home Secretary for her common-sense proposals", as one Tory MP put it. McKeever was ridiculed as "a priceless puffball" by a tabloid columnist.

Paul John McKeever was born in Germany on January 11 1956 and on his family's return to England attended Shaftesbury School in Dorset. After reading Geography at London University, he joined the Metropolitan Police in 1977 at the age of 21. On completing his training he served in Lambeth Borough until 1989 and policed the Brixton Riots in 1981 and 1985.

He later served in Bromley Borough as a sergeant, and fulfilled a number of different roles within the Metropolitan Police before being elected to the Federation in 1992. He was chairing the Federation's sergeants' committee when he became a late contender for the high-profile post of chairman of the Federation itself in 2008.

Having overturned the tradition that the serving vice-chairman should take over the top job, McKeever assumed the role at a critical time, a matter of days after the Federation voted to seek the right to strike.

During his term of office, the police rank and file fought a series of government reforms, including the reduction of a constable's pay to £19,000 — less, as one Conservative commentator pointed out , than he or she would earn working at McDonald's.

McKeever, who had been due to retire in a fortnight, held a number of other posts, including the chairmanship of the staff side of the UK Police Negotiating Board . He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Institution, and a member of the Institute of Directors. He also enjoyed solving the Telegraph crossword.

Paul McKeever, who died from a suspected embolism, is survived by his wife, Charmian, and their daughter.

Paul McKeever, born January 11 1956, died January 17 2013