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Meet PC Victoria Price, of Clacton Local Policing Team. She’s served with us since October 2021 and is our nomination for the national Response Officer of the Year award.
Victoria joined us from the Army, where she was a theatre nurse assisting with trauma surgery. And she’s certainly had the opportunity to practice those skills with us in the past two-and-a-half years.
Victoria says:
“I really enjoy that every job is different in response policing, let alone every day. I get the opportunity to meet different people, from different backgrounds, who need police help and assistance in different ways.
“I love that I have to adapt to my surroundings, think on my feet, assess threat levels, provide care and reassurance as well as control situations to safeguard others.
“Response policing truly is a job like no other.”
This week, 24-30 June, we are celebrating the work of our local policing, or response, officers to help people, keep them safe and catch criminals across Essex.
And the Response Officer of the Year award is one way policing nationally recognises their work. They are on duty 27/7, 365 days a year and are usually the first officers you will see at the scene of an incident.
While still a student officer, Victoria helped to save a van driver’s life after he collapsed at the wheel. Last year, she was commended by Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington for her professionalism and fast-thinking at the scene in Old Road, Clacton.
In the past 12 months, Victoria has been involved in a sea rescue and, more unusually, helped to rescue an elderly person who was stuck in a bath.
She assisted in the arrest of a woman on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm to her partner in a Clacton hotel room. With the help of colleagues, Victoria was able to safely arrest the woman while preserving a chaotic crime scene for crime scene investigators to attend.
She has also helped to rescue a woman from the top of a tall building. Fortunately, she’d met the woman a few weeks previously and built a rapport with her.
“I was able to engage with her and, because she knew who I was and trusted me, I managed to talk her down from the ledge and get her the help she needed.”
As well as saving lives, the job of a response officer involves attending many of the incidents which are reported to police, from domestic abuse and assaults to car crashes and burglaries.
Often, but not always, this will result in the arrest of a suspect. Victoria arrested more than 100 people last year, for a variety of offences, from serious assaults and robbery to drink & drug driving offences and being drunk whilst in charge of a child.
When they are not attending incidents, Victoria and her response colleagues will be searching for missing people, proactively patrolling their districts and investigating crimes which don’t require input from specialist officers in CID, our domestic abuse and investigation teams or the Serious Crime Directorate.
Their operational activity includes stopping and searching people, if they have reasonable grounds for suspicion that a person is in possession of drugs, a weapon or stolen goods.
Victoria says:
“As police officers, we exercise our stop and search powers sparingly but they are an effective way to discourage the carrying of knives or dealing of drugs in public and to keep people safe. In fact, if the outcome is negative, it can avoid an arrest.”
A stop search Victoria conducted on two men in Clacton last year was commended for the way she ‘demonstrated genuine interest and consideration for the impact a stop and search can have on members of the public’. It is now used as an example of good practice for new officers training at Essex Police College.
Assistant Chief Constable Andy Mariner, our force Lead for Local Policing, says Victoria’s professionalism stands out.
“PC Price demonstrates all that is good about the role of a front-line police officer in today’s world.
“She is courageous and handles challenging situations well. She is compassionate, putting victims at the heart of everything she does and being determined to get the right outcome for them while bringing offenders to justice.
“PC Price is a working mother who manages a demanding workload, working a 24-hour shift pattern, while maintaining exceptionally high standards.
“I am proud to nominate her as Essex Police’s candidate for the national Response Officer of the Year award.”
Victoria admits she was ‘truly shocked’ on hearing of her nomination. She says:
“I genuinely enjoy my job.
“I love working with different people and I joined Essex Police because I wanted to try and help those in need – running towards the problem, rather than away from it.
“Response policing has enabled me to progress and develop myself, both professionally and personally, and to try and truly make a difference to the communities I work in.
“I haven’t looked back since joining the police, it’s everything I expected it to be and more.”
At Essex Police, we value difference. We know we’re strongest when we work together. And we want a workforce that represents our communities.
If you share our values and want to help people, keep people safe and catch criminals, then join us as a police officer, member of staff, special constable or volunteer.
Find out if you #FitTheBill by visiting our careers page.