IN HER OWN WORDS: She never wanted to be a police officer - but, now retired after nearly 29 years in the job, ANITA OSBORNE reflects frankly on the heartbreak, humour and the 'for-🤬's-sake weeks' of policing.
My friends call me Batgirl.
It's a nickname I picked up at Police College nearly 29 years ago. I had twin boys aged six and a daughter who was nine. Now I'm typing this just into retirement, with my 61st birthday around the corner.
I never actually wanted to be a police officer. I was sure I wasn't suited to it. I'd never been in a fight, was a slow runner, and was quiet and shy.
I was living in Rotorua, looking for a full-time job to support my family. I'd worked as a psychopaedic nurse and picked up part-time jobs along the way. Around that time, I started playing rugby league with a group of awesome Māori women who patiently trained me. Training for the Police fitness test just happened alongside league practice.
I started at Sydenham in Christchurch. I did Youth Aid relieving, joined the Specialist Search Squad and became an Enquiries Constable attached to a CIB squad.
I separated from my partner about the same time as I started detective training. Teenagers and CIB training (and workload) is what I would call a 'challenging combo,' considering there was no nine-hour rule, and you went home when the boss said you could.
I worked across Christchurch city squads and spent time in Timaru. I attended multiple homicide investigations, arsons, armed robberies, joined the Police Negotiation Team, had the gangs portfolio, spent six months in the Solomon Islands, worked in Comms and returned to CIB.
A lot of my most difficult jobs as a detective were the most satisfying to see results for. I dealt with two serial paedophiles: one was a youth; one had six victims and the other eight. The adult offender received 18 years' imprisonment.
Both had some victims who never disclosed what had occurred but the offenders admitted it in interview.
I really enjoyed interviewing offenders. Planning it out, listening, building trust and getting the information that is crucial to a successful prosecution. They were complex files and had a huge impact on everyone involved (myself included) because of the level of trauma and type of offending.
The Solomon Islands deployment was an adventure. There were riots, extreme heat, poverty, remote communities, helicopter rides and Australians running the show. It was a world away from Canterbury.
After 13 years as a detective, I was amazed to be selected for my next role in rural policing, specifically Akaroa, where I've spent the past 11 years. Rural policing turned out to be a defining chapter of my career.
Being a woman in rural policing and Police generally has challenges.
You learn to pick your battles. People see you repeatedly in a rural community, so interactions are different to a city where you're more anonymous.
I've been called a man-hater for issuing speeding tickets. I've had my share of verbal abuse from the 'do you know who I am?' brigade - elitists with flash cars/trucks, holiday homes, boats and attitudes. I've learnt to walk away, and that's often more effective than winning an argument.
The positive side of being a woman in rural policing is knowing I offered something different to the community. Changing their whole idea of what a police officer is and does.
For some, I was an option they hadn't had before. People have approached me about historic abuse they never reported. Others came looking for advice, support or simply someone they felt comfortable talking to.
When you live and work in a small community, people see you as ‘their’ officer.
You get to know people over years, not minutes. You help them through challenges. I think having a woman in the role opened doors for some that might otherwise have stayed closed.
Remote jobs at all hours, and especially at night, can be a bit hairy. Risk assessments are not just theories and literally make the difference between you being OK, or not. I've never once regretted backing off, waiting for other patrols/AOS etc, and taking time to nut out a plan. Sometimes, you'd only find out something when you got there though, so you had to wing it.
One night I was called to a family harm incident. There was no cellphone coverage, little information and just me responding. It was only on arrival that the occupant said there was a gun under the sleeping offender's bed.
This turned out to be an air rifle, which I secured before waking her partner. Alcohol had got the better of him and despite our previous OK interactions, he ended up handcuffed to a fence while I had a breather.
Waking a drunk person is like waking a cranky bear. Best avoided. Eventually, I got him to a rendezvous point with a Christchurch unit and finished the paperwork at the office. Even when your shift is over, it's back into it the next day with the court process, a video interview and linking in with support agencies.
I'd love to see more women try rural policing.
Whether my approach was different because I'm a woman or an irritating eternal optimist, I'm not sure. I'd rather negotiate through a problem than rely on brute force.
Whatever the reason, I think everyone in Police should try every opportunity available because it changes what you know and how you do your job.
Something I don't hear talked about often is what it's like being a single person in rural policing. So much falls back on partners and families.
For me, that person became my adult daughter, my silent partner. I'd flick her a text in the middle of the night when I got called out and had cellphone coverage. She knew it might be hours before she heard from me again.
She looked after the dogs, did the washing, made cups of tea. She listened to me rant, handed me tissues during ugly crying sessions, gave sensible advice and reminded me on the hard days that I was doing a good job.
Sudden deaths become harder the longer you live and work in a rural community.
When the call comes in, there's that sinking feeling. Do I know them? Do I know their family? Then you brace yourself and get on with it.
You're often working alone, explaining processes to grieving families you may have known for years. You're coordinating funeral directors, the Coroner, statements, scene management and the logistics of a death investigation.
Every scene is different. One day it's a deceased diver on a public wharf on a 30-degree summer day with paddleboarders trying to wander through your cordon and hundreds of people enjoying coffee nearby.
Another day it's a death aboard a cruise ship in the harbour. Or the overseas visitor who died during COVID, leaving you and a funeral director carrying a stretcher around a steep hillside property.
Sometimes you arrive home after a long day only for another sudden death to come in, an hour's drive away. Or you're standing at a fatal crash scene when another death is reported on a boat. Or two people you know die in a crash.
That's rural policing.
Welfare support has been critically important. I've been a mess at times. I wouldn't have lasted this long in the job without the two Christchurch welfare officers.
Like many officers, I've attended jobs that stay with you. Child deaths. Suicides. A toddler left alone with a deceased parent for days. A father who killed his daughter while suffering psychosis before taking his own life. A highly successful student who ended their life. A medical worker and mother who administered anaesthetic drugs to herself.
Alongside that came my own challenges. Relationship dramas. Burnout. Heavy home and workloads. Difficult workplace dynamics.
The welfare officers helped me make sense of it all and gave me space to recover when I needed to, and return to work in a healthy way.
Rural welfare challenges are different again. The big jobs may happen less often, but you're isolated for much longer periods.
I enjoy working alone. I like a quiet office. The challenge is working out when to ask for help, or just 'phone a friend.'
Support can look different on different days. One of my favourite examples involved a sergeant who knew I'd been called out overnight and was being sent to guard a remote scene involving a suitcase that 'might' contain a missing person’s body. I waited hours for the pathologist.
My sergeant rang and asked what he could do to help. I jokingly said McDonald's would be amazing. A little later a patrol arrived with takeaways. Gold.
For the record, the pathologist confirmed the suitcase contained a wild pig carcass.
Policing isn't just about incidents. It's about everything that surrounds them.
You might spend hours interviewing a homicide witness, tell them their friend died, grab a few hours’ sleep, sort your children, head to a post-mortem and perch on a stool, fuelled by coffee and enthusiasm. And try and take great notes. Then return home to teenagers asking what's for dinner.
Or spend a day examining the scene of a missing woman, learn the next day that she's been murdered, support the investigation team, liaise with the offender's family and care for victims. While juggling the rest of life.
In rural policing, one shift might involve a serious crash, a sudden death, breaking up a family argument outside a house where someone has died. And you finish with a double shift.
Another day you're helping get an injured child into a rescue helicopter. Or spending the night at a fatal crash before discovering a cannabis grow at the victim's property. Or being yelled at by a local who thinks you've been unfairly targeting their rural road for speedsters for hours, when you've actually been dealing with a serious incident nearby.
Another day it’s sheep-killing dogs and decisions nobody wants to make. I love dogs. You deal with it. You go home. You start again.
Some jobs are tragic, some are exhausting. Some are ridiculous.
The neighbours who cut down trees because their view of the sea was more important than anyone else's. Or the gang prospect whose stress over a family event generated five family harm jobs in a week.
Or the three young men whose uninsured car disappeared down a remote bank. After hours helping them sort transport and logistics in an area with no cellphone coverage, they shook my hand and told me I was the first cop they'd met who 'wasn't a ****'.
I still laugh about that one.
Then there are the weeks where everything explodes at once: serious assaults, rape investigations, court files, family harm incidents, AOS operations and hidden firearms. I call those the 'for-****’s-sake weeks'.
But the next week might be almost quiet enough to recover.
After all these years, what stays with me most is the privilege of helping people during the worst moments of their lives.
I've seen 'good bastards' die too soon, and difficult people come back for more. I've attended heartbreaking tragedies and absurdly funny jobs. I've laughed, cried, negotiated, argued, comforted and occasionally wondered what on earth I was doing.
But even on the hardest days, I got to do it in one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand.
And for that, I'll always be grateful.
