The beat goes on
A brand new advertisement campaign aims to lure British policemen back from the sunny side of the street in Australia and get them restoring law and order to the UK once more...
Thousands of police officers who did their training over here have been poached by the Australian police to go and patrol Aussie streets.
Now, I don't think it's that hard to understand why they would be keen to go. When spending time ‘on the beat,' walking around under sunny blue skies in short sleeved shirts (aka that classic soap opera Blue Heelers) surely beats slipping over in the rain whilst chasing a thug down Camden High Street.
This latest campaign by Leicestershire Police aims to entice expat officers back home and methinks they will have their work cut out. They have 130 positions available that they are looking to fill.
Their first advert will appear in The West Australian newspaper this Saturday, December 13th.
The ‘Homesick and Away' campaign is intended to remind the officers of all the things they are missing out on, such as Sunday roasts, (but then Australia does have Nicole Kidman's new baby, Sunday Rose) Cadbury's chocolate and a traditional cup of English tea.
Real
ale, white Christmases and Marks and Spencer underwear are also on show (not
literally).
It is no surprise that the campaign targets Western
Australia in particular, given that every one in 11 of Western Australia's 5500-strong police force migrated
from the UK.
Leicestershire Constabulary said
it wanted to stem the tide of officers being ‘poached' by the Australian police
and defended its offer as good value for taxpayers' money.
Chief Superintendent Geoff Feavyour, said, "Often when people relocate they
feel homesick and want to move back, but due to financial constraints they are
not able to do so.
"Some people find the prospect more comfortable when they are offered
assistance in returning to the UK.
"We are offering a relocation package of up to £10,000 to put towards the
expense of relocating. In return we get a fully-trained police officer ready to
go, and we think that is good value.
"We are also drawn to the irony of turning the tables on our Antipodean
colleagues," he added, referring to a recent campaign by the Western Australian Police which tried
to recruit UK
officers. South Australia
has also been running ‘come on copper' campaigns.
WA Police were forced to look abroad for recruits in recent years because of a competitive job market fuelled by the booming economy.
Many officers in WA quit the force to take higher paying jobs with less
stress in the mining industry, while others took lucrative pay deals to work
with federal policing agencies and in private security in high risk areas like Iraq.
Picture by danzo08