HANDCOCK’S FINEST HOUR
Former city police chief hangs up his hat after 44 years
An advert in the local newspaper enticed Pat Handcock into joining the police. A small-town boy from Waikato village Onewhero, Handcock was working on a farm when he saw the advertisement about joining the police cadet programme.
He submitted an application and before he knew it he was taken from a small-town farm and thrust into police college among the big-city lights.
Handcock might have joined the police force on a whim, but he stayed because of his love for the job, rising to become a genial and popular Palmerston North area commander.
Even after 44 years, he is still passionate about learning about what causes crime, including the social issues that contribute to it.
‘‘If you can gain a better understanding of the social issues that impact on crime and if you can use that to apply better strategies, that still really excites me, even after 40 years.’’
Climbing the ladder to the rank of inspector, Handcock says he has decided to leave the police because he feels he has reached a point where there is nothing else he wants to achieve.
He is adamant that at 62 he isn’t retiring and will tend to DIY projects he has on the go before making his next move.
When Handcock joined the police in 1974, portable radios were only just being introduced and they were 10 inches high, attached to a strap.
‘‘We used to communicate from one station to the next using a teleprinter.’’
He worked in Napier for his first posting before ending up in Auckland, working in the CIB team.
Here, Handcock discovered he had a knack for interviewing and getting results this way.
His time in Auckland included some of the highs and lows of his career.
A high was his involvement in investigating a robbery of the Birkenhead BNZ in the early 90s, where $202,500 was stolen.
He was second in charge of the investigation and after three months they managed to arrest six offenders and gain convictions for three for their part in the robbery.
At the time, it was the largest cash bank robbery in New Zealand.
‘‘In 1990, that was big, big money.’’ Another high was helping establish the first intel unit in Auckland.
Along with another officer at his Takapuna Station, they set the team up after looking at one operating out of Whanganui.
‘‘That was our first venture into identifying crime hotspots and repeat offenders.’’
He says burglaries on the North Shore were a big problem at the time. They discovered when there was a tinny house in the area, there was an increase in burglaries and car thefts.
‘‘We changed our strategy around patrolling hot locations and targeted those houses.’’
From doing that, he says residential burglaries halved.
But along with the good times, there was also the tough times.
Handcock says one such time was when he was working in South Auckland and there were 17 homicides in one year.
‘‘A lot of those were domestic-related or alcohol-fuelled at a party, but it was just rolling from one to the next to the next. There was no respite.’’
Eventually, he decided he wanted to do something different, so he sat his senior sergeant and inspector exams and ended up in Palmerston North as a detective senior sergeant.
When Handcock and his family moved to Palmerston North, they thought the move was temporary.
But now they call the city home. After working as a detective senior sergeant, Handcock moved into the role of area commander for Palmerston North and Manawatu¯ , which he held for 11 years.
While in that role he was involved in helping East Timor police develop the art of community policing and in 2014 he went there for eight months as an adviser. That turned into 18 months and in that time he helped the country’s police organisation develop and create a community policing structure that would work for it.
After returning to New Zealand, he has taken on a variety of roles before coming to the decision it was time for him to try something else.
He says policing is about understanding the social issues that lead to community dysfunction and understanding them.
Handcock made a big impact in his time as area commander, helping establish the city’s Safety Advisory Board, which, under his reign as chairman, grew to include more than 30 different organisations and community groups, all committed to improving the safety of the city’s residents.
He was also personally acknowledged for his work when he received an ONZM in 2016 for services to the police and the community.
Looking into the future, Handcock says he is looking forward to a reset. ‘‘I think the present 62 is the old 52. I still feel energetic.’’
Handcock finished his police career this week.