Former detective Senior Sergeant Hugh Letessier takes over as Albany police station’s officer-in-charge

Veteran police officer and former detective Hugh Letessier has started in his new role as the officer-in-charge of Albany Police Station.

Sen. Sgt Letessier has been in the WA Police Force for nearly 40 years, spending a lot of that time working as a detective and in crime investigation units.

The departure of Sen. Sgt Grant Pollard as Albany OIC presented an opportunity for Sen. Sgt Letessier to return to frontline work.

“For 11 out of the last 15 years I’ve worked in one of our covert business units, dealing with control operations and intelligence operations so that was quite interesting,” Sen. Sgt Letessier said.

“The opportunity to come and work in Albany was presented to me and I was fortunate enough to win the position.

“Of my 30-odd years I’ve predominantly been in crime investigation, detective work and stuff like that so this is quite new to me and I haven’t worn a uniform for a long time.”

Apart from 21/2-year stint when he travelled to Northam every day from Perth, the Albany posting marks Sen. Sgt Letessier’s first move to a regional area.

“My role is around looking after the staff and the community here but I know my new Superintendent (Kim Travers) has said we are team Albany and we work as one big team,” he said. “It is certainly not a case of having a narrow focus on Albany and the Albany townsite — it’s the whole district.

“Albany has a very enviable low crime rate so there is not the same volume of pressure and volume work when it comes to responding to crime.

“The pressures are probably more around engaging with the community and seeing that our relationships with the community are good.

“It hasn’t been bad to date but one of the focuses of my effort here is to make the police station and the police staff more available to the community, to respond better and build some trusted partnerships with the community to make sure we get along really well.”