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Some people dream of joining the police as children, but for the new Community Police Officer for St. John, St. Lawrence and Trinity, it was being the victim of a crime that led her to where she is today.
After 16 years in the West Midlands Police, PC Aleya Galvin transferred to the the island, which she had loved since visiting family, in 2018.
More recently, she was appointed the Community Police Officer for three parishes as part of a new drive by the States of Jersey Police to ensure officers build relationships with everyone from residents to retailers in each of the island's 12 parishes to help address the issues that matter most to them.
Each month, Express will be introducing you to one from each parish. After St. Helier's Steve Young, it’s now the turn of PC Galvin, who shared the story of her joining the force, her favourite parts of her new patch, and her crime-tackling priorities...
Just been to visit @Trinityschoolje to introduce myself and my role, along with school officer PC Carter. #communitypolicing #PC737Galvin #jointworking pic.twitter.com/RhjAFjsNXm
— Trinity's Community Police Officer (@trinitycomm1) February 10, 2021
I joined States of Jersey Police at the end of 2018. I transferred over from the UK, where I'd been an officer in West Midlands Police for 16 years. I had family over here, so I'd been visiting ever since they have been here... 20-odd years. I always loved Jersey, and as soon as the opportunity came for me to transfer over, I applied and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to come over here.
I wasn't one of these kids that always wanted to join the police, some people wanted it since they were little. I had something happened where I was assaulted in the city centre. I knew who it was, and obviously police attended and it went to Court. But after that, the only time I felt safe on my own was when I saw a Police Officer. Because obviously Birmingham city centre, it's a busy place, it did scare me. I was really apprehensive about going out, but as soon as I saw a Police Officer, I felt a little bit more relaxed, because at least I knew that if I needed help, there was somebody there.
And then, I decided that I wanted other people to feel safe when they saw me. So I applied to join and got in.
I'd been doing community, or as it was called in the UK, neighbourhood policing, before I came over, and that was one of the reasons we were recruited over here and transferred...because we had the knowledge and experience of neighbourhood policing in the UK.
I like it, it's the friendly cop, rather than the the one that just turns up because there's a problem. Sometimes it's called ‘sticking a plaster on’ when you initially turn up to an incident, whereas a Community Officer is looking as to why that incident happened in the first place to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Working with people and communities, it's about building relationships in the community, getting to know who's who, getting their trust and confidence so that if they've got a problem, they can talk to you about it.
There's a lot of people that don't want to bother police, they might see something or have heard something, but they don't want to bother police with it. They don't think it's a big deal, so they might not pick up the phone, but they're probably more likely to chat to me if they see me popping in regularly and just say, ‘Oh, by the way, I saw this the other day' or 'I heard this the other day.'
So it's about having that trust and confidence in the community, so that people have got somebody to turn to.
A Response Officer works a shift pattern just like we do, but there's less flexibility in their shift pattern, because they obviously have to make sure that the shifts are covered and we have total coverage across the island, when we need it the most.
Whereas a Community Officer, there is a little bit more flexibility. If we're getting a lot of problems that seem to be occurring at 08:00 then maybe I need to flex my shifts and work a few more 08:00 starts and vice versa, if they're happening later in the evening, maybe I need to do more late shifts to accommodate that.
Response Officers, when they get the chance, they obviously do go out and they act proactively to stop cars and patrol areas. But they're always sort of beholden to the radio more than what we are. So they can get sent from St. Ouen anywhere to over Grouville - they’ll go where there is an incident and an officer needs to be there at that time.
As a Community Officer, it's down to me what I kind of do that day and what my workload is - have I got meetings with somebody? What have I got planned for my day? Am I going to go visit a school today? Am I going to go and work with a community group today?
For me, it's very much seeing what's out there and seeing where needs covering, but also me going out and deciding what I need to do based on the information I have.
So it's a lot more of me, rather than being told where you're going with response and what you have to go to. Obviously, Response Officers are there 24 hours a day and their job is to be the ones that will go out when there's a fight or whatever going on, so their job is so important. We do the other side of that policing where we have the time to go in and deal with things to speak to people a little bit more than what response do.
Out exploring my three parishes today. Great to see people using all of our island's beautiful outside space to assist with social distancing#SoJP #communitypolicing #parishoftrinity #737Galvin pic.twitter.com/75bZZHRUus
— St John's Community Police Officer (@stjohncom1) January 9, 2021
Obviously, I'm not great with Jersey geography. I've been here two years, but I've spent a lot of that within sort of like St. Helier and the town centre. Some of it was about getting to know the quickest routes to the parishes, where are the borders. Some of it was just basic, ‘Let me find my parish, let me find my parish halls’ and it was going into the parish halls, the ones that were open because our first shift was still obviously in the middle of the circuit breaker.
So, it was going in which ones are open, who can I go and speak to…popping around the shops is probably one of the first things I did just to go and say hello to your shopkeepers that were still open as essential at the time, and just familiarising myself with the area and the people around.
That's what I did first of all, and I'm still doing it now because obviously with the three parishes, I'm still working my way around some of the little areas I've not been to yet, some of the shops and stuff I didn't know existed.
On a typical day, I will check if I've had any emails in relation to any incidents that have been happening. I will check our police crime system to see if there's been any crimes, since I was last on duty, I’ll have a little look into those and see if it’s something that a Community Officer can help support with.
I’ll also check our logs that have been generated. A log is when somebody calls in and says that there's an incident. We then get sent to what is called an I-log which will have like the caller's details on there, and a brief sort of précis of what the incident is about, and then a resolution of what's happened to it.
Pictured: The day begins with checking some of the Police logs.
So, I’ll check all the logs of any phone calls that have been made to the police complaining of any issues and check, do I need to know about them? Is there a pattern that has been picked up on? Are there names mentioned that maybe I can help or need to know about as the Community Officer?
I check all that background information first, and then I'll go out, I always make sure I try and do the three parishes. I always make sure I get to drive through at the very least, but I will try and go into the shops just pop my head in the different places depending on the day. I try and pick a different parish each day that I'm on to do all the shops and just check that all the people are okay, chat to people as I'm walking around.
The beauty of the parishes that I've got is that people tend to have a little bit more time for you as well - they're not rushing. Sometimes people, especially in St. Helier, can be rushing to work or from work, whereas the ones I've got tend to have a little bit more time, so they’ll stop and have a little chat with you.
I'll pop into the parish halls to see if they've had any incidents that have been reported to them.
We work quite closely to the Honorary Officers within each parish as well because obviously they do an amazing job. They get a lot of people telling them stuff that doesn't come through to States of Jersey Police. So, it's about linking in with them. Is there any information they have that they can share that we can work together on if there's an issue that has been raised?
It is really about relationship building and getting to know what is going on at the proper grassroots, what are those little things that are bothering people that that we can possibly help with?
Some of them were kind of ‘Has something happened?’ It’s normally the first one. Then when you explain, it's: ‘Oh, you know, we used to have one a few years back... It's nice to see you.'
With the initial reaction... we haven't got an infinite number of officers, we are quite thinly spread at times and we go to where the demand is. So, sometimes some parishes don't always see officers, especially out and about walking and being in a position to chat to people. Obviously, the areas do get patrolled, but a lot of the time the Response Officers are in a vehicle so that they can deal with other jobs. Community Officers have that time to be able to walk around stop and chat to people which Response Officers don't always get that time to do unfortunately.
I'm out with @stlawrencecom1 today on patrol in Coronation Park, St Lawrence due to recent reports of Anti-Social Behaviour. Lots of families enjoying the beautiful weather! Brilliant to see ???? I'll be around the area of FB fields shortly! #communitypolicing pic.twitter.com/kxxqYbaxYr
— St Clement's Community Police Officer (@stclementcom1) February 20, 2021
There's a few issues of antisocial behaviour that have been reported within St. Lawrence in a few areas. I've worked with the Honorary Police, as well as other colleagues at States of Jersey, I’ve made them aware of the issues so that they can also patrol when they're on duty.
As a Community Officer, I don't work obviously 24 hours, I'm not always there, and I tend not to do nights unless there's a specific need for me to do a night shift. I rely then on my Response colleagues to patrol at those times I can't be there.
We're addressing that [anti-social behaviour issue] at the moment - we're working with the Youth Service, and, like I said, the Honorary Police. We’re making sure that there's a lot of partnership working, everyone knows what is going on in the area.
In Trinity, there's nothing really that's been raised other than obviously the speed. It’s the same for St. John. There are issues with vehicle speeding, and that's pretty much across the island. There’s a force-wide response to that called ‘Operation Canvas’, targeting certain areas where the driving seems to be occurring quite often.
Pictured: Speeding is one of the issues PC Galvin will help tackle.
I try and support with that where I can, but again, a lot of it is early hours of the morning and I don't always work then. But it's about gathering that information, speaking to people if they've seen anything while I'm out and about - have people got CCTV? Maybe where they're picking up where vehicles are gathering. That kind of thing.
I can still play my part, even if I'm not actually out there with a speed gun at 02:00 in the morning, but I do try.
In Trinity, I'll always try and visit Bouley Bay. I just think… the windy road down… it's just beautiful, it really is. Even on a miserable day, it still looks absolutely stunning.
In St. John, I do actually just love the village. It's nice, it does have a nice friendly feeling, it's quite central, everything is here.
Pictured: Bouley Bay is one of PC Galvin's favourite spots. (Andy Hawkins/Wiki)
In St. Lawrence, some of the valley areas, Waterworks Valley, those bits are probably my favourites.
They all have their own little bits. The coastline in St. John is stunning, sometimes I'll stop off at Sorel Point and have my sandwich while I'm out and about because it's that beautiful. I sometimes I will sit and eat my lunch in some of those beautiful spots.
In all of them, you do feel as though you've proper got a community feel where people do take pride in their area, they want to know what is going on, what can they do? They don't want things going on that shouldn't be. It is that community feel that I like about all three of my parishes, they're all just lovely in that sense.
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