We both knew and loved David Bayley for almost 50 years. Throughout that time he was recognized as the world’s leading international comparative policing scholar. Since his death many tributes from fellow academics have been published, in which the highlights of his academic career, his prolific publication record, and his significant contributions to the development of policing scholarship have been recounted. And in 2015, an exceptional chronicle and appreciation of his life and career to date was published by an English police officer, Richard Heslop . So we do not feel that we need to go over all that ground again here. Rather, in what follows, we explain what were David’s particular qualities that we experienced that made him such a cherished colleague, mentor, inspiration and personal friend for all those years that we had the privilege of knowing him.