New Bellarine Police senior sergeant Adrian Bickley is looking forward to getting straight to work.
Senior Sergeant Bickley has been with Victoria Police for more than 30 years and is already impressed with the local community.
“What I’ve noticed is that even though I’ve only been here three weeks, the community holds their local police in high regard,” he said.
“We get a lot of emails coming through in regards to requests to go to community meetings and a lot of positive feedback coming through this office in regards to the good work police members are doing which is really satisfying.”
Senior Sergeant Bickley is married with two teenage sons and one son in primary school. He is an avid Geelong Cats supporter and is keen to uphold the already positive image of Bellarine Police.
“I want the community to have confidence in the local police and my job here is to make sure that continues and that we can put out a good service to the local community within the Bellarine,” he said.
“It is a beautiful part of the world. It’s very fluid, we know that as the seasons change we are going to get an influx of people from elsewhere and with that influx, we have issues such as road trauma.
“We can see spikes in certain types of crime but if have that local support all the time, we can handle that and we can help.
“I want to say to the community, ‘we are here and we can help’.”
Born in England, raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, but now very much an Aussie, Senior Sergeant Bickley is keen to tackle the issue of road trauma.
“Whenever there’s a serious injury or even a fatality in an area such as this, you take it on board personally because it’s something you’re always trying to prevent,” he said.
“We’ve just got to be very proactive with regards to that. The members of the public on the Bellarine will start to see a more visible police presence to make sure everybody gets home safely.”
Senior Sergeant Bickley also wants to continue the already positive community engagement with police.
“I want community support to help us solve crimes,” he said.
“We want the public to come forward and say ‘look I saw something sus’. Any piece of information no matter how small or trivial could be the missing piece of the jigsaw.”
