12 Special report
FRANKSTON CIU
Where team work takes first place
The crime rate at
Frankston is one of the
highest in the state with
more than 12,000 crimes
reported in a year. And it
has the highest clean up
rate in the state. Head of
the CIU, Detective Senior
Sergeant Steve Fyffe puts
the success down to good
people who are selfmotivated and want to
get the job done.
“P
eople who come here
generally stay here
for five to ten years or
longer. They get to have a good
understanding of the suspects and
the crime trends. “That’s why I’ve
gone for specialisation,” says Steve
Fyffe.
The Frankston CIU work in four
teams, each led by a detective
sergeant. There is the Catch a
Burglar unit (CAB) with four
detectives, the Theft of and from
Motor Vehicle unit (TOMCAT),
with three detectives and two
members from the RRU, the General
Investigation unit with five full-time
and one part-time detective and
SOCIT, the new pilot unit set up
in February to investigate sexual
assaults and child abuse, with
three full-time and one part time
detective. The high level of sexual
assaults reported made Frankston
the ideal station to trial SOCIT.
The SOCIT investigators work in
purpose built premises away from
the police station with CASA and
the Victorian Institute of Forensic
Medicine. This means victims
will be able to go to a ‘one-stop
shop’. Here the victim can make a
statement, receive counselling and
undergo the medical examination.
“It’s been said we lose a lot of
victims when they walk into a
very busy police station foyer, like
Frankston. There might be 10 or 15
people in a queue and you have
to tell a young constable that you
have been raped or a victim of
Detective Sergeant Tom Nairn with Senior Detectives Jo McDonald,
David Roach and Steve Wyatt
July 2007 Journal The Police Association Victoria incest. It is very daunting. It takes
a big decision from the victim to
come forward. This is a way of
trying to solve that problem,” says
Steve Fyffe.
“It is a victim friendly place and
offers the victims the best possible
service we can. The offenders
never go there. When they process
offenders they bring them here, to
the police station.”
Frankston CIU has had a specialist
sex offence investigation team for
more than three years. Steve Fyffe
says there was a need for people
interested in those investigations to
do them. “Some people have more
of a calling or desire to do them
and that’s important.”
Detective Sergeant Tom Nairn
is in charge of SOCIT. Two of the
detectives are on call every night
and weekend. Two additional staff
will join the SOCIT this month.
“This is all about improving our
response to the victims,” says Tom.
The early response from the
victims to the new centre has been
very positive. One victim who was
seeing a social worker said she was
ready to make a statement. The
detectives were just down the hall.
The victim didn’t have to go to the
police station, taking a lot of the
stress away.
“The people we see are just the tip
of the iceberg. CASA workers see up
to 20 or 25 a day at the Frankston
SOCIT unit and the vast majority
haven’t reported the crime.”
There is funding to run the trial
for four years, but Tom expects the
unit to be reviewed in two years
The highest number of crimes in
Frankston is theft from motorcars,
with 45 percent being the theft of
the number plates. These are then
used in the theft of petrol, using city
link or committing other crimes.
www.tpav.org.au
photography www.gregnoakes.com
Detective Senior Sergeant Steve Fyffe with Senior Detectives Craig Glover, Paul Roberts, Byron Carpenter, Mark Garrett, Darren
Paxton, Sergeants Paul Mealia and Paul Busuttil and public servant Rhonda Tempest
They were up to 200 thefts a month
last year, which prompted the move
of the TOMCAT unit from the RRU
to the CIU.
To combat the theft of number
plates, the police at Frankston have
special days where one-way screws
are fitted. When thefts of number
plates are reported, the crime
prevention officer sends the victim a
letter with a set of screws to attach
their new number plates to the car.
Since the TOMCAT came to the
CIU there has been a major decline
in the number of offences. They
charged a one-man crime wave
with more than 400 offences.
Thefts from cars create much more
damage to the car than the value
of the theft. When the offender was
charged with the theft, the owners
were left without compensation.
Now, Frankston detectives charge
offenders with criminal damage
and theft, so the victims can apply
for compensation.
Burgs are also high. Last month
there were 150. There are literally
hundreds of recidivist burglars in
Frankston. During a recent audit
they gave up counting when they
www.tpav.org.au
got to 187. Some of these offenders
have 30 pages of priors. There is
said to be a tactical analyst coming
to Frankston and that person will
have a lot of work waiting for them
to assist with the burglary reduction
strategy. “We really need to know
who is active so we know who to
target,” says Detective Sergeant
Paul Mealia, who heads the CAB
team.
The detectives get the list of
prisoners released and they can
predict an increase in some crimes.
Every month there are tens of
recidivist offenders released back in
to the Frankston community. Paul
Mealia admits to his heart sinking
when he sees some names on the
list. He knows it is only a matter of
time before the crimes will start.
The general investigation team,
headed by Detective Sergeant Paul
Busuttil, is the largest crew and they
get everything ‘that’s left over’. The
team don’t get aggravated burgs
and burgs, thefts of and from cars
or sex offences other than wilful
and obscene exposure. They look at
serious assaults, major thefts and
deceptions, arsons, blackmails.
“The work varies from week to
week,” says Paul. “Deceptions
are the most prevalent including
internet and eBay frauds. And in
summer months we get a lot of
grass fires.”
“A decent proportion of our crime
is because we are at the end of the
train line. People come here for
their methadone and while they
are here they commit a crime, then
get back on the train to go back to
where they come from,” says Steve.
The success of the Frankston
Mornington Crime Desk, headed by
Sergeant John Greene, has created
more work for the CIU. They do
10 to 15 jobs a day and aim to
attend 100 percent of burglaries.
At the moment they are getting to
about 90 percent and work two-up.
“We provide an in-house forensic
service and it is paying off. We get
fingerprint and DNA idents from
the scene – 15 or 18 a month,” says
John.
Specialising clearly works at
Frankston, with a high success rate
that is the envy of many other
suburban CIs.
July 2007 Journal The Police Association Victoria
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