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Don Wilkinson's covert work for the New Zealand police was so secret, he even kept it from fellow officers.
Speaking at the slain sergeant's funeral yesterday, Kumeu Squash Club president Vicki Parker - a constable - said she had known Mr Wilkinson for five years.
Wearing uniform, she told the 1000-strong congregation at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell that like many who knew Mr Wilkinson, she had no idea he worked for the police.
"My initial reaction to this news was that it can't be our Don because he was not a police officer," she said.
"To my astonishment, Don in fact was a police officer and had been for some nine years. It just goes to show how committed he was in his job, that he kept his career so confidential."
Mr Wilkinson was shot dead after being caught installing a tracking device on a car outside a home police allege was involved in the drug P.
Yesterday's service was both a celebration of Mr Wilkinson's life and a grave warning on the dangers of P.
The Very Rev Ross Bay spoke of the "scourge" of methamphetamine, and police chaplain Kelvin Gooder and Commissioner Howard Broad also spoke of its dangers. So too did Mr Wilkinson's mother, Beverley Lawrie.
"He was a hero," she said of her only child. "If we learn anything from his death, it's the fact that many more will be [shot] unless we clean up the gangs and the drugs."
Mrs Lawrie said her son as a child had an "insatiable curiosity and a real urgency to learn", adding: "He seemed never to be afraid of risk.
"Don thrived camping, tramping, farming and expanding his world. He loved animals, he liked music. But his greatest love was electronics."
His expert skills had led to time working in Antarctica, Bosnia, Somalia, Italy and Iraq during work for the United Nations which made him "a man who lived two lives", Mrs Lawrie said.
Undercover work involved many sacrifices.
Mrs Lawrie said earlier this week that she believed his police job was the reason he had never married.
When she spoke at his funeral yesterday, those sacrifices again became clear. She said her son would come for dinner if he was working nearby but would always rush off, saying: "I've got to be gone by 10 o'clock, Ma, because I don't want to be seen."
The hearse bearing Mr Wilkinson's coffin drove slowly through hundreds of police officers in a guard of honour as his body was taken to be cremated.
Two men charged in relation to his murder will reappear in the Manukau District Court next week.
