Jed Wittig grew up on a sheep and cattle property in Uralla, joined the police force in 2013 and has spent the last five and a half years policing in Bourke, NSW. A town with one of the highest police to resident ratios in Australia.

“Working in Bourke was great, and I really enjoyed the remote rural police work out there,” Constable Wittig said.

“There are about 50 police officers for a town of just under 2,000 residents, so it’s a massive police population. We worked out there is about 1 of us to every 15 people in town. 

“Everyone knows you out there, they know your life story, they know you back to front from day one pretty well. There is a high crime rate with a lot of domestic violence and alcohol-related issues, but it is quite a good little town really.”

Constable Wittig said a lot of his time in Bourke was spent on domestic violence issues and his sense of achievement fluctuated.

“Individual days you might do something really well for one victim, but every day was a different person and a different story,” he said.

“Other than that I spent a lot of time on rural crime issues and I had a few good wins on illegal hunting. There are a lot of absentee farmers out there, and we spent a lot of time doing patrols focusing on the rural crime issues and goat theft. Coming from a rural background that was of high interest to me.”

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Constable Wittig started at the Walcha station earlier this month to replace Constable Tony Sozou, who moved on from Walcha earlier this year. He says a big motivation for the move was to be closer to his parents who live in Armidale.

I missed too many family things over the last few years and being inside 700 kilometres from them will be nice,” he joked.

“I think in terms of the sense of community Walcha will be similar to Bourke. The best way is to work with the community and be approachable at all times. I found that in Bourke I was often getting phone calls when I was off duty and I understand that will be the same here – especially living right next to the station.”

Constable Wittig wants to encourage people to come up and have a chat with him if they have any issues. 

“Regarding domestic violence, it’s an issue everywhere and it seems to be affecting everyone, so we need to not be silent about it,” he said. 

“If someone knows there is an issue, then please come forward, and we can get the ball rolling and help a victim if they’re  not willing to come forward themselves.”

And never be embarrassed to report a problem to the police.

“Surprisingly people often feel too stupid to say they have 100 head missing, but then you talk to their neighbour and they have 50 missing, and you work out a pattern,” he said.

“It might seem like something small and trivial, but it might be that missing piece of information we needed to complete or kick off an investigation.”