Senior Constable Jeff Cramp has moved from general policing in Rawene to the Northland Serious Crash Unit based in Kaikohe. Photo / Jenny Ling
Senior Constable Jeff Cramp has moved from general policing in Rawene to the Northland Serious Crash Unit based in Kaikohe. Photo / Jenny Ling
He's been policing the Hokianga for more than a quarter of a century and has plenty of weird, wonderful and downright grizzly tales to tell.
Now, at the age of 60, Rawene Senior Constable Jeff Cramp is moving on to his dream job having landed a position as an analystin the Northland Serious Crash Unit.
Cramp recently resigned from his post the Rawene Police Station on Parnell St, where he's been the officer in charge for 25 and-a-half years.
He's rapt with his new job, covering the whole region from his base in Kaikohe.
"It's the dream job finally come through," he said.
While in the Far North he's had a few lucky escapes, including from a taiaha-wielding 14-year-old who tried to slash his throat with knives he'd hidden in his clothing, and from a man armed with a 303 who was waiting for cops to arrive during an armed offenders callout in Omanaia.
He could have easily been electrocuted while investigating the death of a farmer's prize bull in Waima which, as it turned out, had been killed by fallen power lines.
Jeff Cramp was involved in a range of police duties during his 25 years at Rawene station, from murders, domestics and car crashes to the opening of the Hokianga Community Shed.
A map on his wall charts the number of murders and fatal crashes he has been involved in; seven murders and 300 fatal car crashes over his career.
Then there's "all the domestics and crashes", along with the drownings.
By the end of March this year he'd dealt with three drownings in his patch; at the Black Rocks, the Rawene estuary and on the unpredictable bar.
Hearing the horror stories about people drowning in the Hokianga Harbour prompted Cramp to establish a Coastguard in the area in 1995.
"That's probably one of the biggest things; we see people when they're young and you deal with their families when there are problems," he said.
"You see the families when there are tragedies. You become part of the community and emergency services; you really have your sleeves rolled up when you work in that kind of role. You're a social worker and a community worker as well."
There's also been many changes in the police and the crimes they deal with.
Senior Constable Jeff Cramp of Rawene police has moved onto the Serious Crash Unit. Photo / Peter de Graaf
When he started the phone system was on an exchange party line and there were certainly no computers.
The Waipoua Forest Rd on State Highway 12 was "gravel and metal all the way through to the Dargaville side".
Cramp has seen a lot of constables come through the doors and is "now on model 15" Darron Goodwin, who moved from Whangārei a couple of weeks ago.
Cannabis was a major problem when Cramp started out, as the Hokianga was probably the biggest cannabis growing area in Northland.
But that's taken a back seat to methamphetamine, and it's one change which saddens Cramp.
When he first started, he could rock up to a pub to make an arrest and the offender would walk placidly into the waiting cop car.
With meth, offenders are more volatile and much harder to predict.
Jeff Cramp with a chalkboard message from a campaign in 2016 on what it means to be a New Zealander. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
"Now P has well and truly taken over," Cramp said.
"There's a massive problem with meth in the Hokianga now. Not only does it cause family harm but we're getting more burglaries because people are trying to fund their habits. From a police point of view it's very hard to deal with."
There have been plenty of strange cases Cramp has attended from what he calls "the busiest small station in Northland" which covers 12 settlements from Waipoua Forest to Taheke.
He had a few contacts who helped him return a cursed Māori artefact stolen from Clendon House in 2010.
The carved whalebone whip handle was probably the most prized possession of the late Hokianga rangatira George Clendon.
There was the emergency callout to Omapere where he found a hysterical woman with her foot trapped in a lazy boy armchair.
But among the medley of curious cases, one constant thread which is woven throughout Cramp's police work has been the serious crash work.
It's why he joined the police in the first place, when he started as a traffic cop for the Ministry of Transport in Tokoroa back in 1988.
When the ministry merged with police in 1992 he became a crash investigator before moving to Rawene in 1994 and becoming the officer in charge two years later.
"It's something I've always done, right from the word go," he said. "I've always studied it and researched it. I fell in love with general policing and running a small station and doing serious crash - now I can just concentrate on this."
Cramp started his new role on November 18, which was, as it happened, a rostered day off.
He and Senior Constable Warren Bunn, who is based in Whangārei, make up the Northland Serious Crash Unit, and Cramp's Rawene role has been advertised.
Cramp said he's "enjoyed every moment" of general policing in the Hokianga.
"Rawene is a great community. There's always something different - the odd, the quirky -that's happening. There's more certainty in the serious crash job – if I get called out at night it's only for one reason."
