'It's not like Summer Bay': Life as the only cop in town

Updated

Good cop. Bad cop. The only cop. When you're the town's sole police officer, you're everything from traffic warden to marriage counsellor.

You can be friendly but don't be friends.

That's the advice Paul Delaney got when he first became a country cop.

"It doesn't work," he can report, after 14 years in the bush.

In a town like Toora, a small farming community two hours south-east of Melbourne where the Leading Senior Constable has been stationed for the past four years, there is no way to remain apart from the population you're policing.

"You can't. Especially when you've got a wife and three children in the local school. Some days you come home and there are 15 kids in the backyard.

"Country policing's a lot different," says the 51-year-old, who had 16 years' city policing under his belt before he made a tree change.

"You work in a community, you're part of the community. If you need any assistance you get it mainly from the people.

"Their eyes are as important as my eyes. They see things, they come and tell me about it and I go and do what they want me to do, what I'm paid to do."

Senior Constable Delaney is the sole face of the law here, as are officers in about 100 of Victoria's 332 police stations.

A one-man-band and a one-stop-shop for the 900 townspeople whenever there's a problem.

"You are the traffic cop, you're the crime scene man, you're the policewoman from the sexual offences unit, the marriage counsellor and the search-and-rescue man.

"You're everything until those other services get here.

"I don't know if thrill's the right word, but when you've followed something through from the beginning to the end and you've got a result for someone who was in need, there's no better feeling."

You become knower and keeper of the town's secrets.

There are family violence call-outs, usually the same few families.

You respond to mental health crises, often drug-induced. Schizophrenia, depression. Even a country town can't escape those ravages.

After a while, the landscape comes with an overlay of all that's happened on your watch. Here a break and enter, there are a fatal crash.

You know, for instance, that 100 feet down the ravine beneath the lookout there's a car frame still entangled in a pile of blackberries.

The driver called you at first light after plunging off the cliff in the middle of the night in a fit of despair.

If he didn't call you'd never have known — not a skid mark to be found.

You become privy, unbidden, to the more everyday dramas too.

"People come and say, 'My 16-year-old daughter's going out with this boy I don't want her to go out with'. I'm not their parent but sometimes they want you to be their parent.

"You give 'em advice and pass them on to other support services, do what you can do."

Tree change

Senior Constable Delaney knew nothing about Toora when he took up the post.

Originally established in the 1860s to supply hardwood to Melbourne, there are still pine plantations in the undulating hills around town.

These days the local economy is all dairy farming and tourism — Toora boasts the tallest single-span waterfall in Victoria in Agnes Falls.

Though most residents have lived here their whole lives or come to retire, many more pass through, stopping in the caravan park, perhaps, on the way to Wilsons Promontory.

A dozen-odd wind turbines turn on the hillsides, visible from the main street. When the wind blows, which is about 363 days out of 365, they're said to generate enough electricity to power the town.

A recently opened factory — Chinese-owned — manufactures powdered milk that's sent exclusively overseas.

Though the place has changed, policing remains essentially the same.

That sense of continuity is underlined by the fact that Senior Constable Delaney lives with his wife and children in the original police officer's quarters.

Built in 1892, the ageing structure has housed every officer since.

One burglary per year

In the past month Senior Constable Delaney has attended one burglary and one illegal lighting of a fire during a fire danger period.

The theft was opportunistic — fuel and a battery stolen from a garage when a car broke down out front. They didn't enter the house.

It's the first burglary in 12 months.

"It's not like Summer Bay where there's major crime every day of the week. It can go from doing nothing at all to major collisions, searches, court."

There are regular warrants to search for drugs, generally nothing more serious than cannabis.

But a lot of the day-to-day work is traffic enforcement, attending collisions or assisting with searches for lost bushwalkers down on the Prom.

There are marine offences, the odd boat in trouble on the water. Firearms inspections to check farmers are storing their guns according to regulation.

Recently Senior Constable Delaney spent seven hours in court for a remand hearing.

"I don't think we've had a major, major, major incident here for a long time."

There was once a shooting at Port Welshpool. But that was before Senior Constable Delaney's time.

The work, though, leaves an impression.

Like the night that started out as a call-out for a loud stereo and turned into a near-fatal car accident that Senior Constable Delaney can still picture.

In a one-man station you are the only bearer of bad news.

"You know the person that's in that car who you can't do anything for and then you've got to tell the family and they all know you. That's the worst part."

For debriefs, there are the officers in the neighbouring town of Foster.

"I like to go and just sit down with the boys, have a beer or two after work and just have a yack about it between ourselves. I can't go to talk to my wife about those sorts of things, she doesn't need to hear that."

'Policeman Paul'

When it's quiet is when the proactive policing happens.

"I try to get out and talk to as many people as I can, just show people that we're out there."

A blitz when he first came to town has changed habits around drinking and driving.

"When I first got here there would be no cars parked out the front of the pub on a Saturday morning and now the car parks are full. I just sat out there for 5 or 10 minutes on a Friday or Saturday night when I first got here, pulled over a couple of cars, got a couple of point-oh-fives and word got around real quick.

"So it works and that's proactive policing in a small country town.

"People then understand and it saves me a lot of work down the track. I'm pretty proud of my record at the moment that there's been no fatalities on my roads since I got here."

He drops into the school at least once a week.

"I read the kids a book or something and get in there and let them feel like they can talk to me as Policeman Paul. It's not Senior Constable Delaney, it's just Policeman Paul. I think it starts at a young age.

"No matter what their parents are like, if you can get it into a kid that he can at least talk to a policeman and a policeman can talk to him like he's a human being, it goes a long way down the line."

The best weapon

When you're the only cop in town you learn to negotiate.

"I don't need to start a fight out in the middle of the highway when I'm on my own."

For all the kit on your police-issue belt, the best weapon you have is in the middle of your face. Paul points to his mouth.

"You can solve so many problems, you can stop fights, you can do everything just by using your mouth.

"How you speak to someone in the first instance can determine what the outcome will be.

"If you go barrelling in and just going, 'You're nothing but a rah rah rah...' you're not going to get anywhere.

"Like the two offenders I got for the burglary the other day. I just walked up to them and said, 'What are you doing? I know what you've done, you've got to come with me to the police station'.

"Regardless of what they've done, if you talk to them on a level that you're not demeaning to them, you can get a lot more done."

It's an indication of Senior Constable Delaney's way with people that motorists end up thanking him for giving them a speeding fine.

"I don't lecture someone when I give them a ticket. I don't go in there and say, 'Oh you idiot, you're bloody speeding'.

"I say, 'Mate you're doing 120 in a 100 zone. What are you doing? You give me no option, here's your ticket'.

"And if it's close to a drop off point where it's between a certain amount and a certain amount, if you say to them, 'Look I've dropped it down a K an hour so I'm giving you the least fine I can give you', they're going, 'Thanks'.

"Mate, I'm giving you a $200 ticket and you're saying thanks? That's great. They're happy, I'm happy. My bosses are even happier."

Always on duty

Being a country cop is a 24/7 gig with all sorts of blurred boundaries.

"This job I got the other day, the lady knocked on my door at 7.30 in the morning. That's what they do. They don't understand or they don't care if you're on duty or not.

"If they need a policeman, they're going to come and see you whether it's three in the afternoon or three in the morning."

"They know that's the local policeman and that's what you sign up for when you go to a one-man station."

For Senior Constable Delaney, it's a comfortable fit.

"Who wouldn't want to work here? Why be driving around chasing your tail in the city when you can be working in your community, working with the people you live with? I wouldn't give this up for the world."

Topics: police, law-crime-and-justice, rural, work, community-and-society, toora-3962, vic

First posted