STEPH COOKE CONGRATULATES NEW OFFICER IN CHARGE AT HARDEN-MURRUMBURRAH
February 23, 2017
Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke MP today congratulated Senior Constable Adrian Hughes on his appointment as Officer in Charge for Harden-Murrumburrah.
Ms Cooke was joined by Hume Commander Superintendent Chris Schilt and Officer in Charge at Young, Detective Inspector Scott Wilkinson, to officially welcome Senior Constable Hughes to the role.
Senior Constable Hughes moved to Harden-Murrumburrah from Sydney in 2015 - having worked in a CBD command for many years - and said he enjoyed the town immensely and was looking forward to the new role.
“I’m looking forward to being able to interact more with the community out on the streets,” he said.
Superintendent Schilt said as OIC of Harden, Senior Constable Hughes will definitely have an opportunity to make an impact on the community.
“He’ll be able to target the things that are important in the local community and ensure those needs are met,” he said.
Detective Inspector Scott Wilkinson said Senior Constable Hughes had been stationed at Harden prior to his appointment but he was now being given greater responsibility and greater opportunity for his area and town as part of the NSW Police Force Re-engineering program.
“The Officer in Charge is now the face of the police in the local community – he’s the go-to guy … this initiative will make sure people have someone locally they can come to, that they’re confident in and who they know,” he said.
Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke said Senior Constable Hughes had a great wealth of experience to draw on which made him a wonderful choice for this key position.
“This is of course the continued roll-out of police reengineering across NSW and what that inevitably means is that our communities will be safer, we’ll see more police on the streets and it will instil confidence in the community that they are safe,” she said.
“They can come to their officer in charge and any of the police based here in Harden with any of their concerns, knowing they’ll be taken seriously, knowing that issues of crime will be resolved going forward – it’s a great day,” she said.
“I’m really pleased to be delivering on community policing so soon after the promises I made during the by-election,” she said.
“This is the biggest change to policing in rural communities in 20 years, and it means we now have a model that will work well for smaller communities such as Harden,” Ms Cooke added.
