Sandy - Relax, Enjoy and Build a Relationship

In 1971 Sandy graduated from the Victorian Police Force at the age of twenty-one. At that time women could only work in the women’s division. The general public assumed female police officers didn’t have the same authorities as males. With equal opportunity laws more women entered the police force, but not all the guys appreciated this change. Female police officers were not issued hand cuffs, or firearms. They were given a short trudgen and a handbag, and were told that if they needed to restrain a crook, to remove their pantyhose and tie them up.   

A transfer from Melbourne to Bendigo in 1983 found Sandy working in ‘community policing’ with a focus on child and sexual abuse. Country policing meant that if you were the first person on the scene, you did the job. And with this ‘can-do’ mentality the small team in Bendigo became pioneers in policing family and domestic violence and abuse. They instigated domestic violence investigations as we know them today, Sandy did the very first intervention order in Australia, and another officer started a program for male offenders. They convened a national conference to discuss the lack of laws addressing family and domestic violence. The office also devised a kit for women who needed to or had escaped family violence. This kit was later funded by the Federal Government for all of Australia. 

Sandy sustained faith throughout the incredible pressures and challenges of her policing career. God was always with her, tapping her on the shoulder, or guiding and protecting her in her times of greatest need. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Oh, g'day there. Welcome to The Spirit, where we share stories of faith from the heart of the country. Would you like a cup of tea so hot you need asbestos gloves just to hold the mug? Well then, pull up a chair, settle in, and join us for a chat.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

This story contains discussion of family and domestic violence. Listener discretion is advised.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

I'm Darcy and I'm here on the lands of the Jar Ja Warung, who I acknowledge and offer my respect, and I'm in a little place called Bendigo, and I'm speaking to Sandy. G'day Sandy.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Good morning, Darcy.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Great to have you with us. Now, Sandy, did you start life in this part of the world or did you grow up somewhere else?

SPEAKER_01 0:52

I was born and bred in Melbourne, grew up in the house that my father moved into when he was six, and uh that was in Ormond, uh in the south-east suburbs of Melbourne.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

What was life like growing up in Ormond?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Oh, compared to today, very free and easy. Kids were turned out on a weekend to disappear and do what they liked, as long as you're home by tea time, um, from a quite a young age. Um, everyone almost knew each other, even though it was a suburban area. The uh church was a centre of activities and things to do, and I thought it was all weird and wonderful, so I was in. Um wasn't sure who God was, but it was interesting, so I trotted along. I also wouldn't go to Sunday school because of a lesson we had when I was about five that made no sense to me. And I thought, well, that's stupid, it was much more interesting in church.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

So you're getting all the adult information. Yeah, that's where the interesting stuff's going on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it sounds like church was kind of always part of your life growing up. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

But not not the main focus, just an equal focus with all sorts of other things.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Yeah, and w how do you remember church fitting into the wider community in those days?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

The church was the social services of the day, because we didn't have welfare agencies like we do now.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Well, as someone who went on to be very involved in the community, do you feel like that was part of what kind of gave you that interest or that understanding of uh involvement with the community?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

It that was definitely part of it, but the other part was um growing up working at Puffing Billy with all sorts of members of the public.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Oh, the train.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yep. Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Yeah. So is that a family passion?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yes. We were up there quite often every Saturday and Sunday. We had so many community groups coming to ride on the train and so many people of different nationalities and all sorts of things. That I grew up from the age of four going on five, dealing with all sorts of people and doing all sorts of jobs where I was given a job as an adult and expected to do it properly, and so it became just a natural thing for me to jump in and do things when needed and talk to anybody.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

And puffing billy is the one where you put your legs out the side, is that right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, no accidents, no uh there well in recent times there was an accident where a car hit a train, and after that no one was allowed to sit on the windowsills, but now they've brought it back in that you can do it again.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Good. Yeah. Feels like an important thing we have to keep. Oh yes, yes. Oh yes. Can you tell us perhaps a little bit about how you decided to enter the police force and what it was like when you first joined?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I thought I could join the police force because I used to watch the police horses practicing their musical ride when I was young. Mum would take us to watch, and I liked the police horses. And I thought, well, I could be in the police force. So I joined when I was 21. At that stage, that was the youngest girls could join. And my very first shift was in the afternoon, and we were driving along, and a car went through a red light, and my the person driving the police car zoomed in through the red light after it and pulled over, and I said, What are we doing? And she said, Booking it. And I said, Can we do that? Because I really had no idea. In the police academy, you didn't learn what you did at work, you just learnt laws and things like that. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

So it was a lot of learning on the job.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

And yeah, I was in the police force for 34 years and loved nearly every minute of it.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Wow. So what was it like particularly as a woman in those days?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Uh you could only join the you could only work in the policewomen division where you're expected to do as you're told. A lot of people, the public thought that police women just did the typing at the police station, and if you saw them in a car, that they were taking a file from one police station to another. As I went through the academy, the government brought in equal opportunity laws, but they hadn't been enacted, so they knew they had to get more police women into the police force ready for when the act became law. And so my squad, we had five females out of about 25 men, and then after me, they even had a whole squad of females go through, but the guys did not appreciate it. They thought, well, police women aren't strong enough, they aren't, etc. etc. They're going to be a liability. Uh I didn't prove them wrong, but a lot of other police women proved them wrong on that one.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Um did you have a sense of kind of self-doubt?

SPEAKER_01 5:49

I mean, I imagine Oh no, because I was too dumb to think that I might need to be doubting.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Yeah, you just what you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah, yeah, you just get on and whatever. I found that I was spoilt by a lot of the policemen because I was a girl giving it a go. And I found out that a lot of the policemen were actually softer than what they thought the girls were.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

We didn't have handcuffs, we weren't allowed to carry firearms, um, and we got given a short rubber truncheon that had a metal bar down the centre that was about oh 30 centimetres long. Um, and we got given a handbag, and we were told that if we had to arrest a crook and we needed to restrain them, to take our pantyhose off and tie them up.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Well, and so this was a police-issued handbag. Oh yes, it's beautiful. Have you still got it? I still have it. How wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Occasionally I'd take it into work just because people wouldn't believe me to see this handbag. And we could also swing our handbag and hit the person on the head if we needed.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I I'm assuming I shouldn't, but I'm assuming you never had to use the pantyhose technique. No. Thankfully. From what I understand, Sandy, you transferred from Melbourne to Bendigo, where you were working in community policing. Do you want to tell me a little bit about what that kind of police work involved?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yes. So it was police women when I came here, but shortly afterwards became community policing, which meant that men could work in our office if they want. But most of the men didn't want to because they were scared they'd be asked to how many pantyhos they were going to be issued.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Um, that was a running joke. Um but we did have men come and work in the police community policing squad over time. And can I say that? Some of them were far more brilliant at the work than the women. And we concentrated on child abuse and child welfare cases. It was before child protection was invented, and we also did all the sexual offence um reports, and some of the men were far more brilliant at taking a rape statement or an incest statement than some of the women I worked with over the years.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah. So was the assumption that women were going to be better suited to this type of w you know work around abuse and things like that, is that that could be it, but I sometimes wondered if it was the belief that men didn't want to do that. So what kind of year was that, Sani, when you started in Bendigo? Yeah, yeah. And so then that was really the beginning of quite a long time working out of Bendigo. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

But it wasn't a small area when I came. The boundaries changed every now and then, but roughly from Riddles Creek to the Murray, roughly from Marutna to Wedderburn, Charlton, Maryborough was our district, and where there was only ever a very small number of us covering that area.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Wow, yeah, yeah. And in those years, I I mean I assume you must have experienced some, you know, very confronting and challenging things.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

And particularly being country, you also might be out on patrol by yourself or coming back from a job by yourself, come across a serious car accident, or be the nearest to a some other serious incident. So you go and you have to run it by yourself until others come. Or if you're lucky you've got a partner with you that day, but it's still only a couple of you handling something major. So whether it's a serious car accident, murders, rapes, um armed holdups, you name it, if you're the nearest one there, you do it.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the that whole area of law and as you say of social work and things was really, it was only just kind of evolving and and coming into um existence. So I wonder, I guess you were just at the forefront of really having to learn uh, you know, what was really going on and and the best ways to respond as police.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah. And and I was very proud that it was our office in Bendigo, our little community policing squad, that actually instigated domestic violence investigations as we know them today. Um I'm I did the very first intervention order in Australia. We also, one of the others in our squad looked at the problem of the offending men and started a thing in about 1985, um, started a program in Bendigo for male offenders to go and learn about anger management and how to handle different how to respond to other people. Yeah. And there was a number of things we did were the forerunners.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Why do you think it was that the you know little crew in Bendigo were kind of leading the way in some of these things across Australia?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Well, we got we got frustrated not being able to do something for a customer. And thinking, well, there must be a way around this. And we also had some very, very bright people working in the welfare field in Bendigo. And they we got to, if we were bored, we'd visit them, and if they were bored, they'd visit us, and we'd just get yakking and saying, something needs to be done, something needs to be done, what can we do? And in 1985, we ran a national conference, and we had people come from all over Australia to a think it was about a four-day conference in Bendigo where we were discussing our frustrations about lack of laws, lack of acknowledgement of domestic violence. And just in case people don't know, um when I joined the police force, we were advised not to take assaults from domestic violence to court because it was nearly always husband against wife, occasionally wife against husband. But the law said that you could not make a husband or wife give evidence against their partner. And so they'd get to court and they might have been really bashed up, but they'd get in the witness box and refuse to speak because they were still scared of the offender and didn't want to speak in case the offender got to them later on and bashed them for speaking. That meant the case would be lost, and that meant that the all the court costs would be awarded against the police person who took it to court, which it was usually thousands of dollars. So we were told do not take these things to court. And then um they changed it in the 80s sometimes they changed it that it was no longer the police member that wore the costs, it was a police department.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Well, so when you say it was the police officer, like personally? Personally. Really?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah. So it came out of your private bank account.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

You meant the the department was paying at the end. No.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

No, no, it was out of your bank, own personal bank account, and then they brought it, came out of the police bank account, which didn't go well down well with the hierarchy, and eventually they got rid of that, and that made that really opened up the doors to helping. So before that, if you had someone who was really badly bashed up, just had to do your best to get them to leave their partner, and that was not easy for all sorts of reasons emotionally, financially, physically, and so it was very frustrating. One stage the Red Cross came to us. Um, a lady from the Red Cross in Bendio and said the Red Cross was set up to fight um fight problems during war scenarios. Worldwide, we've agreed there's not enough wars for the Red Cross to justify being in existence, and then it dawned on us that we think domestic violence is a war. Wow. And so you got got any idea what we can do, and that was one of the things that led to us having the National Conference.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

And so it seems as though one of the things that's really evolved in and and I think become more and more common in recent years is that very collaborative approach between, you know, police and social workers and NGOs and so on. And it sounds like that was really a kind of key thing that you were involved in pretty early. Yeah. Can you think, Sandy, of I I guess maybe times early on where you you started to see the importance of things like those early intervention orders or supporting victims and yeah, helping them to get out of those situations?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

That's a that's a tough question to answer because I just saw what was in front of me, something needs doing, and did it, and then went on to the next thing. I didn't sort of reflect on things. It's only when people talk to me like this that I start reflecting, because we were busy enough that there was always something else around the corner, and I was more I'm glad that got done, you know, what what's next? Sort of attitude rather than oh, amazing, that was wonderful, blah blah blah, or that was dreadful, you just moved on to the next thing. And I think one of the hardest things I probably ever did was having to they they brought in a system of um videotaping victims' statements. So when we wrote a statement, we had to try and get the emotion uh into the written statement. Some people found that easier than others, and some victims weren't very emotive with you when you're took that matter of fact when because that was how they dealt with what had happened. And that had to be given to a uh a jury potentially down the track, and if they couldn't empathize with the victim, it made it harder and all that sort of stuff. And so they brought in the video tapes where not just captured the words, it also proved that police weren't putting the words into the person's mouth, which was another thing we were challenged at court about. Uh, but it also showed the attitude of the victim. And for a a jury or a magistrating court or a jury, depending on what level of court case it was, to see a three-year-old bouncing around the room with you saying, Oh, can you sit just there? Can you please? Yes, I can boing, boing, boing, and they're bouncing everywhere. And so the court to see the child, with usually the police woman or policeman desperately trying to work out a ways as getting them to stay still, but not interfering. Very challenging. Uh a lot of these little children would actually suddenly just stop and look at you right in the eye. And a number of times when we spoke to children, um, we'd say afterwards, oh you know, that was really well done, they said, You were listening, you were listening. And because they'd been trying to tell people but didn't know how. And the people saying, Oh yeah, go away, I'm busy doing such such and such. But so that's a message I always said when I did public speaking. If a child wants to tell you something, stop and listen to them. And if you really can't say, I really can't now, but I'll come and find you in X number of minutes. Oh, I can listen now. In 1993, I was at home watching country practice, and Esme, the old girl, was talking to Frank, the policeman, having a chin wag, and she disclosed she'd been sexually assaulted when she was a child. And the policeman said, Oh, is the guy that did it still alive? And she said yes. And he said, Oh, well, we can do something about that. And I jumped on the phone to another colleague who was off duty and I and she said, Are you watching country practice? And I said, Yes. Well, the next day we went to work and the phones rang off the wall. Wow. And at that stage I clearly remember that for the previous 12 months we'd done about 300 jobs, which were sex offence jobs, but also car accidents and lost children and shoplifters and burglaries and you name it. In the next 12 months we had 1,100 jobs, and nearly every single one was an historic sexual abuse. Wow. Because Esme, Frank had told Esme, the police can do something, which they can, provided the offender's still alive. If the offender wasn't alive, we then referred those people to counselling and stuff like that. Then in 1997, I was at home watching All Saints, the hospital show, Australian hospital show. And a young male nurse, which was pretty novel in those days to have a young male nurse on the TVs, and um he came to work out of sorts, and the female nurses are all saying, What's wrong? What's what's wrong? What's wrong? And uh he finally says that tells them that he was raped the night before. And they said, Oh, that's not good enough. And he's saying, Go away, leave me alone, and they call the police in, and the police actually investigated and got a result. Well, again, I rang one of my colleagues while I watch his show and they went, you what and not that flow gates opened, but finally men well from the next day onwards, men from about 18 years up started contact yes. The eldest was in his 70s that I dealt with, reporting stuff that happened recently or years beforehand.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

So, Sandy, what role did your faith play in those years where you know you were dealing with all these incredibly confronting things?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Uh well, my first experience of acknowledging any sort of faith was when I went to Fiddler on the Roof when Mum and Dad took me when I was 11 or 12. It was a stage show with Topol playing Tevya, the main character. And it starts with Tevier stomping back and forth across stage, really annoyed because God's going tap-tap-tap-tap on his shoulder the whole time, and he's saying, Go away, God, leave me alone, leave me alone. And that really rang true for me, and I still walk along saying, Stop it, God, you're tapping me on the shoulder. I'm okay, God, I know what I'm and I could feel being pushed and prodded, and occasionally when really serious, very scary things happened to me, of feeling protected. As in not necessarily protected while it's happening, but the split second that I'm safe realizing, oh, actually guided and looked after, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

So on and so forth. Yeah, yeah. And what kind of things were you doing to look after yourself in those years? I mean, what did you do for fun or to kind of sang?

SPEAKER_03 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Talked. Uh no, sang. I've always sung in church choirs, still do. Um, mind you, there's getting less and less of us. So if anyone wants to join the choir, it's appalls in bed to go.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Um good plug.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

But uh and community choirs, I have a very small core of friends, a core that if something nasty happened while I was working that I needed to debrief, I could. Um and those people are still in my small, very small circle.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

When you think about your career, a very impressive career as a police person, what are you most proud of? What do you reflect on and feel the proudest of?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

I think possibly the people I worked with being such a good bunch and and working together and um yeah Yeah got you got got you back thinking about it all haven't I yeah yeah oh I well yeah well I'm pr I I'm also yeah I'm proud of that it's more that I've been lucky enough to do what I want how I want. I had free reign and the very small group I worked with we locked into that and were able to achieve a lot of things that made people's lives better in ways that weren't necessarily the conventional way that what what would have been expected had we been in Melbourne, but we looked outside the box and were able to do that because we weren't restricted.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Thinking about then the church, how would you like to see churches engaging with the issue of family and domestic violence and abuse? Have you Yeah, what are your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Um To acknowledge it happens and to get the actual facts on what police and services can and can't do instead of thinking they know. And also for priests or hierarchies at church to listen to people that are in the congregation who have the experience of either being a vic uh involved in domestic violence personally or have worked in the field.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

And it's that collaborative attitude that you you know were talking about earlier that you know if we're working together and sharing information and knowledge, we're better able to support people.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Yeah, yeah. And it seems as though, you know, you must have been particularly aware of some of the terrible things that have happened in the church, but you've managed to stick with your faith and continue that church.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yes, and I've it's not stopped me from coming to church.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah, yeah. So what do you think's kept you kept you coming despite all the shortcomings?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Well, it's family.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Mm, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Um that's been a a big thing for me. And the friends that I knew when I was a child and a teenager that w had anything to do with church and so forth, I'm still thick as thieves with. Yeah. And so it takes a family even wider, and now I'm friends with their friends and all that sort of stuff. Um it's in some ways I don't need four walls and a high ceiling to be in church, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and I can yeah, to me, God's everywhere, always tapping me on the shoulder. Yeah, he's right behind you, or giving it me a prod in certain directions. I think. And I mean, I have been, I've been very glad I do live by myself. Sometimes I say, stop, leave me alone, just just go away. I'm quite okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Never alone, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah, and um when I was 14 and I joined the choir, and I was asked to sing the solo, which terrified me, um, Comfort, O Lord, the soul of thy servant. And I was practising it at home, and I had to go to a Saturday private session with the choir mistress to run over it the day before the Sunday service when I was singing it. And I was scared beyond anything, because I love singing, but always sung in ensembles, and um and I suddenly thought, oh, comfort, O Lord, the soul of thy servant. Oh, oh, okay. And I just when it came to the anthem in the service, I sang it quite happily because I was asking God, help, help.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

You were singing to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah, and um uh and uh and that's when I that's when I started to really put things into place in my brain, and God's just part of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

What advice would you give to someone who is searching for God?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

I'd almost say stop actively looking because God's already found them.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Oh yeah. Um as in relax, enjoy and build a relationship. When I worked at Puffing Billy and we had people come from all in different groups, like groups of disabled people, groups of older people, groups of blind people, groups of whatever people coming, and we had a lot of Christian groups because there was a big Christian youth camp up near Puffingbilly, and they'd say, Oh, it's marvellous! I've come to the hills and I've found God. And mum used to say, Oh, I didn't know he was hiding.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Sandy.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Yeah, thanks for chatting. I think we've covered everything. Excellent. The Spirit is brought to you by the Anglican Diocese of Bendigo. To hear more stories like this, please subscribe to this podcast. You can help us share these stories by leaving a review. And you can find photos, videos, and more storytelling from the heart of the country at thespiritstories.com.au or on Facebook and Instagram at thespirit.stories.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

If you're in an abusive situation or know someone who is, call 1 800 Respect. Please know you're not alone, and help is available.