MARK Johnston started his police career in Bankstown in 1999 and got a well-rounded experience of policing duties doing everything from the bike squad to plain clothes duties. 

From there Sergeant Johnston got his first taste of country policing when he transferred to Lightning Ridge which was an experience that he looks back on fondly.

“I enjoyed the engagement you have with the public that being a country policeman gives you and I worked there for more than three years,” he said.

“From there I went to Casino where I worked for eight years and then I did more than two years in Lismore before I arrived here recently.

“I believe I have a good handle on country policing and what it is like to work in a rural area.”

Johnston, who is in his early forties, sees Glen Innes as a town that would benefit from his community minded approach to policing.

“I have four children from 12 down to 2 years old and so I would like to do things within the community that engage our youth and from that hopefully the adults will get on board,” he said.

“I wanted to be a policeman since I was five years old, I was lucky enough to have a positive experience with police when I was a boy and so I know how that type of police work can be good, especially in a small town.”

Sergeant Johnston says he knows the perception of the police is not very good in Glen Innes and he would like to change that.

“When I first got to Lightning Ridge the feeling in that town was the same as it appears to be here, the guys here do a tremendous job, they love their work and they work very hard, but we need to project that to the public,” he said.

“We will be getting out into the town more from now on, I have always thought that if we go to things like the cracker night and the show and just walk around, that goes a long way to showing people that we are here to help and are a part of the same community they live in.

“So we will be just getting out and about in town and do foot patrols during the day, which is a better way of doing things in my experience.”

But lifting community engagement by being amongst the people is not the only goal Sergeant Johnston has for the near future.

“I would like the public to have the confidence that they can come to us and report matters that they think we might not be interested in, because we are, we are interested in all types of crime,” he said.

“If something has happened, we want to know about it, because sometimes one small thing joins another small thing and that can lead to a big thing.

“Because the community does not think we are interested and therefore they won’t report small crime, we sometimes then have a harder time solving a bigger crime, so we want locals to have the confidence to report things, you don’t even have to come to the station, you can call police link or crime stoppers, they don’t actually have to speak with us in person if they don’t want to.”

Sergeant Johnston fell in love with Glen Innes when he drove through the town on his many trips back and forth from Lighting Ridge to the coast and he is happy to be here.

“I think this is a beautiful little town, I fell in love with it many years ago and if we can start and maintain some good programs then hopefully the police can make a positive contribution to the town,” he said.

“We have a number of police in Glen Innes who are keen and I will encourage them to get into schools, engage with the youth and maybe we can start programs like Blue Light discos which we know work.

“My major short term goal is to just get into the community and show people that we do care and we do want to help, so come up and say hello if you see me around town, I just want to make things better for Glen Innes and I have a great team that share that goal with me.”