Back the Blue: six new police officers posted to Oxley Police District's proactive crime and domestic violence teams

The Oxley Police District has revealed where its six new experienced officers will be posted, with four to be added to the proactive crime team (PCT) and two to a "new-look" domestic violence (DV) crew.

Both squads travel across the district on deployments to respond directly to needs.

Oxley commander Superintendent Kylie Endemi said it was an exciting boost to the thin blue line.

"This sets us up in a really good position," she said on Friday.

"All of our communities should feel like this is a win for them."

The proactive policing team - which can act covertly based on intelligence - had not been expanded in decades.

Just half-a-dozen officers had been covering an area from Walcha to Wee Waa and everything in between.

Superintendent Endemi said the almost doubling of the PCT team to 10 was a "real gamechanger".

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"That in itself tells the community that this is a significant investment in terms of our focus and our priority to keep those crime levels down," she said.

The two new full-time domestic violence team positions will create a better resourced operational arm.

"That will provide great assistance to our first response police in terms of targeting high-risk domestic violence offenders, and doing proactive and preventative work in terms of our domestic violence victims," Superintendent Endemi said.

Recruitment is under way and the Oxley Police District is ready to welcome the new senior staff with open arms in the next year.

The allocation is part of the final 550 officers from the 1500 announced by the state government in 2018 to be posted across the state.

The Tamworth branch of the police union (PANSW) had been pushing for more boots on the ground in both the PCT and DV team to continue stamping out a dangerous property crime wave seen earlier this year, and to respond to increasing incidents of DV.

Chair Brian Pegus told the Leader the allocation would ease the burden of hardworking general duties officers as well as the stretched specialist teams, and would keep the community safer.

"This will enable the proactive crime team to spread their wings all the way across the district," he said.

"If we can wrap up these offenders before they get a run on, like they have in the past, then that's good for everyone - but not good for a crook."

He said the association welcomed the new cops dedicated to the DV team.

"A lot of it goes on behind closed doors and it's one of those less spoken about things, but it's certainly very prevalent," he said.

"It gives us that extra ability to respond across the district and have a proactive arm of the domestic violence team that can get out and follow up with offenders."

Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson said the allocation was great news.

He said the joint campaign had been successful and the resources would be arriving in the region to support frontline police.

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