Support
I was 22 years old and had been in the job about two and a half years. I arrested a guy for assaulting his wife. He was held in custody and from prison he put a lot of pressure on his wife to drop the charges and not to take the witness stand. She was under huge stress with a newborn baby and a toddler in the family. She had no support from her parents, who didn’t approve of her choice of husband in the first place.
The wife would ring me and visit me wanting to withdraw the charges. I encouraged her to follow through with things in order to ensure justice ran its course. This included a visit to the guy on the day of a court hearing, advising him to stop blaming his wife for his situation. I told him that the Police policy was to support complainants in family violence situations and if he had any issues with that he needed to speak with me or the prosecution section.
On the day of the hearing I was both relieved and pleased to see the wife at court, along with her friend as a support person. She also had her children with her and, to compound her stress, the whole family was unwell with the flu. After the hearing she waited with her friend until everyone had left the courthouse. She then gave me a gift-wrapped present and a card to say thank you for being a friend.
It was my first card of thanks and appreciation from a member of the public, and it was from this young Maori girl, about the same age as me and the wife of a gang member. I still have the card today and use it to demonstrate how important it is to value the people we are paid to provide a service to.