NEW RECRUITS
From left to right: Ashleigh Coker, Tara Brown, Hemish Goodeal and Shannen Finnerty. Below: Shannen playing rugby
ING TO GO…
forever. “A little while back, a colleague attended an RTC which was pretty bad. The other car had left the scene and we were determined to find it. We saw a fire engine and had a hunch that the car we were looking for might have been burnt out – we were right. I am so excited for what the future holds.”
HEMISH
Hemish Goodeal was used to keeping a class of primary school children in order, but since switching careers from teaching to policing he’s now keeping order amongst the wider public. After making the decision to leave a career he spent many years training for to join Kent Police, he has absolutely no regrets. The 30-year-old explains: “Some of my family in Mauritius are in policing and their stories always intrigued me. I got into teaching and did it for five years, but when it was time for a new challenge, I immediately thought of policing.”
Hemish discovered his classroom skills were surprisingly transferable to policing. “There are many similarities – it’s about
understanding the issue you are presented with, distilling the key information, and communicating appropriately,” he says. He also joined due to his public service ethos, at their core, both careers are about helping out the local community”.
Nine months in, the job is exceeding Hemish’s expectations. He prefers the hours and has a lot of confidence in the training he has received. He adds: “I know this will be a job for life because of all the different sideways moves that are available. There is a huge array of options I can look forward to within my new career.”
SHANNEN
Shannen Finnerty, 27, a North Wales based response officer, became a police probationer in March last year after working as a residential property marketeer. She initially worried about how her new colleagues might deal with the fact she had been a teenage single mum, as she’s been judged quite harshly in the past. She needn’t have worried. “In policing, I’ve found there’s loads of different people
from all sorts of backgrounds. There’s a feeling we’re all in this together, and there’s always someone willing to take the time to explain things you don’t know,” says Shannen.
A keen rugby player, Shannen is number eight for Abergele RFC and several of her teammates are also officers. She attended a fatality in her first week at response and soon after, she and a fellow probationer dealt with a situation involving an individual with serious mental health issues. She explains: “We had to apply a
tourniquet to help save a life – looking back it was really helpful to hear the reassuring support in my earpiece from a sergeant who talked us through things. This really helped us to keep calm and deal with a very serious incident. We were both really proud to be given a Superintendent’s commendation for this incident.” She adds: “Although it’s been a steep
learning curve, I’ve loved every single minute of it. I’ve also found it’s the variety of different backgrounds which makes good policing.”
APRIL 2021 | POLICE | 23
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