New faces keeping the Meander Valley safe

The frost was still on the paddocks when Constable Kaitlin Lawlor pulled into Deloraine on her second morning in the Meander Valley. She had come from Launceston, where three and a half years had been spent rushing from job to job. Lawlor stopped the car and took a photograph of the crisp landscape.

Lawlor, Constable Josie Plummer and First Class Constable Sophie Baker are three of the officers based across Westbury and Deloraine stations. They are enthusiastic about the community they serve, and have some simple suggestions for locals. Cameras around the home are handy, good sensor lights help too, and of course, look out for your neighbours.

Baker has been at Westbury for a couple of months, four years into her career with Tasmania Police. “The community gives us bits of intel, bits of information, and what they saw.” Baker arrived in the Meander Valley via Launceston, and the contrast is sharp. In town, a job gets handed to whoever has a spare moment. Out here there is often the capacity to follow things through more thoroughly.

Prior to police work, Baker coordinated technicians at Launceston Toyota and salespeople at IRIS Computing, building people skills and patience that’s still required. She is working towards her senior constable rank and has her sights on family violence and sex crimes investigation, with an eye on the Northern Family Violence Unit in Launceston. “That is really where my passion is,” she says. The moments that have stayed with her longest, though, are the conversations with people in mental health crises, and the phone calls that happen months later. “They say, ‘thank you, that help is what I really needed,’ ” she says. “And that really sticks out for me.” 

Plummer transferred from Launceston six months ago and works out of Deloraine. She joined the police because she loves true crime and investigating things. Before joining the police she worked reception at the Magistrate’s Court, and before that pulled shifts at a pub and an IGA. The work that stays with her is the family violence victims who sought her out when they were ready. “When they come and see you and say, I just wanted to talk to you, and they tell you everything,” she says, “it’s really rewarding making such a big difference.”

Lawlor arrived at Deloraine station three days before she sat down to talk, after nearly three and a half years in Launceston, while originally from Queensland. She has worked in a Family Violence Focus Group and in prosecution, but what drew Lawlor to policing goes back further, to schoolyard fights she stepped into as a kid. “I’ve always been a bit of a peacekeeper,” she says. She came to the Meander Valley partly for a better balanced life.

What unites all three is the mateship at Tasmania Police. “Being there for the people that have your back, and then having their back, is really important to me,” Lawlor says. Baker put it the same way. “You’ve got to have a closeness,” she says, “because of the things that we do.”