Te Puke police gain four new constables, enhancing team culture

Four new police constables have recently started working at Te Puke police station - from left, Sarah, Trevor, Anita and Dan.

Te Puke’s police station has welcomed lots of new blood recently.

Four new constables have started at the station in recent weeks and Te Puke Police Sergeant Mike Owens says it is good to be back up to full strength.

He says it is unusual to have so many officers arrive in a short space of time.

“They are great additions to the station,” he says. “All four of them come with their own skill sets and they’ve been working well since they’ve been here. They add to the station culture and camaraderie really, really well.”

The four constables have a range of experience.

Sarah is originally from Taranaki and has been in the police force for three years.

Before arriving in Te Puke she had been stationed in Mt Wellington in Auckland and says policing in the Te Puke district is very different.

Trevor has been in the police for nearly four years and has experience of both big city and small-town policing.

He began his career in South Auckland before moving to Kawerau and from there to Te Puke.

Originally from South Africa, he says small-town policing is very different to working in a large city where it is “very much job to job to job”.

He says his experience from Kawerau is that the community supports the local police.

“Everybody has a vested interest in their local cops and you definitely see the same thing here in Te Puke.”

Anita spent 10 years working in Whakatāne before moving to Te Puke to be closer to home.

She says working in Te Puke is similar to working in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

Dan, who has been in the police for almost three years, also moved from Whakatāne.

“Anita was my first training officer so we’ve been working together for a while now, and we are together in Te Puke so that’s quite cool,” he says.

He says he enjoys small-town policing.

“You get more time to do your job and time to build relationships with people, more than you would in the hustle and bustle of a big city I’d imagine, so it’s personal policing and I quite like that.”