Coastal cops

A group of teenagers is spending the week partying in Torquay for schoolies when one of them starts to get into trouble.

The school leaver and his friends have been letting their hair down after their final Year 12 exams but, on this night, he has had too much alcohol to drink.

His friends start panicking.

They know he needs help and they should probably call Triple Zero (000), but are worried they and their friend might get in trouble if the police turn up.

They then remember that, at the start of the week, officers from Torquay Police Station dropped by to wish them all the best celebrating the end of their schooling, set some standards and said they could call on them if they needed any help.

The group makes the call to Triple Zero and Leading Senior Constable Steve Wrigley is one of the officers who shows up.

“They were loath to call us, but they did in the end, which was really good because we were able to get an ambulance and help their friend,” Ldg Sen Const Wrigley said.

“Thankfully, they realised I was probably more like their dad than a scary police officer and that we wouldn’t make any dramas about it. We just wanted to make sure they were safe.”

Working in one of Victoria’s most popular tourist and events regions presents priceless opportunities for officers in the four Surf Coast police stations at Torquay, Lorne, Anglesea and Winchelsea.

For Ldg Sen Const Wrigley and his colleagues, they know their interactions with people enjoying a holiday or a music festival are chances to create positive connections.

“With the kids on schoolies that we helped, hopefully they take that onboard as they enter into adulthood and think, ‘The police aren’t too bad. They’re just like us. They’re just people wearing uniforms’,” he said.

One of Australia’s top tourist attractions – the Great Ocean Road – winds its way through the Surf Coast and draws around six million sightseers each year.

Senior Sergeant Adrian Bickley said police from the four stations in his patch were often the first encountered by international visitors.

“There are a lot of international tourists who hire a car and drive along the Great Ocean Road as the first thing they do after stepping off the plane,” Sen Sgt Bickley said.

“The Great Ocean Road is one of the few places where there are arrows to indicate what side of the road you need to be on, because we recognise a lot of people might be from a country where they drive on the opposite side of the road.

“Hopefully this simple road marking will help reduce road trauma.”

Such a busy tourist route keeps the local police, especially from the Lorne and Anglesea stations, on their toes.

Sergeant John Digby is the officer in charge at Anglesea and has seen it all.

“Not long ago, I pulled a car over on the Great Ocean Road because someone was standing up out of the sunroof and taking videos of the view,” Sgt Digby said.

“They were from overseas and knew what they were doing was wrong, but they said they were just trying to get footage for their social media.”

Sgt Digby said sometimes people didn’t slow down when driving through the town on the tourist road, putting locals and visitors in danger.

“One excuse we get often for speeding through Anglesea is, ‘I thought it was 80km/h’,” he said.

“I always reply that they have gone past 13 60km/h signs.

“The majority of drivers on the Great Ocean Road are sensible because they see the risks with all its twists and turns, but we do get the odd person who thinks it’s a racetrack, and one of the dangers there is that they are relying on other drivers to be doing the right thing.”

In the 16 years since Ldg Sen Const Wrigley started at Torquay, he has seen the town and overall Surf Coast change drastically.

“It used to be that, from April through to October, this was a reasonably quiet sort of place,” Ldg Sen Const Wrigley said.

“But there has been huge population growth here since then and now that window of quietness really doesn't exist.”

The growth both in locals and tourists has meant a growth in demand for police in the area.

As a result, the Surf Coast will be getting one of the biggest influxes of additional police in the state.

Torquay currently has 22 frontline officers and will be almost doubling its staffing levels, while Lorne and Anglesea will also receive additional members, as part of the Victorian Government’s funding of an extra 502 police.

“It will completely change the way we are able to do our policing down here, which is fantastic,” Sen Sgt Bickley said.

“It means we can be more proactive, adaptive and evolve to respond effectively to meet community needs and expectations.

“We will have opportunities to target local issues like road trauma by using our additional officers in traffic operations along our coastal roads.

“It’s all about making our roads safe.

“The amount of people and increase in workload we have to manage down here and the distances we have to cover are huge, so people will really notice the difference with all these extra police.

“It’s a big win for the Surf Coast.”

This article first appeared in Police Life magazine.

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