It’s been about 20 years since Superintendent John Duncan last worked the Northern Beaches beat, though he’s lived in the area that whole time. He was then based at Manly Police Station, where he was promoted to Inspector. Today, he’s a Superintendent, and newly appointed to the helm of the entire Northern Beaches Police Area Command.
“I think things in Manly have improved quite substantially since then, I really do,” he begins.
“I think, you know, across the board, we’ve seen that violent crime is generally trended down. And I think there’s a lot of good work that’s been done in Manly by the licensed premises, the liquor accord and [organisations] like Council, to try to prevent violence.
“But, as police, we know that things evolve over time, and while some crime categories go down, others increase.”
More on that later.
So, who is the newly appointed policeman in command, replacing Superintendent Pat Sharkey as he moves to his next post?
Superintendent Duncan’s career began in 1989 when he was first sent to Petersham. From there, he reached the rank of Detective, even moving to internal affairs for a stint. Interestingly, the father of two then took time out of the police force, honing in on the protection of children and women.
“I moved into child protection, and I spent a bit of time working with family and community services up on the north coast,” he reveals. Then things took an even sharper turn.
“I was lucky enough to get a secondment to the United Nations,” he continues.
“I went to East Timor, where I was an investigator with a Serious Crimes Investigations Unit focused on gender crimes for six months.”
Afterwards, he arrived in Manly and made the area his home.
The more senior years of his career placed him everywhere but home. He was Superintendent at Ryde for seven years, then over to Waverley and then to Surry Hills.
From running the show at Surry Hills to the Northern Beaches is quite the shift, he admits.
“Surry Hills was four square kilometres, of which half of it was parklands and the entertainment precinct,” he tells Manly Observer.
“And now I’m looking after 250 square kilometres and 300,000 people.”
When pressed on some of the differences in crime between the two areas, the Superintendent instead focuses on some of the challenges that are true to both – managing people in some form of mental health crises. But he says our area is well resourced with five “pacers”, these are mental health professionals who help on scene in the community with de-escalating situations. The pacers have access to the person’s mental health history and can assist in referring them to get the help they need, preferably without the need for coercive police measures.
“Normally, in mental health jobs, we would schedule somebody who’s either homicidal or suicidal, but the clinicians have a much greater appreciation of people’s treatment plans and access to their health records,” he explains.
“So, they’re able to do a lot of earlier intervention and also steer them to the local mental health services, long term. It’s a very good service.”
So, violent crime has trended down in the area over the years, what’s going up?
“Well, ten or 15 years ago we didn’t really have problems like sexting, cyber abuse and fraud,” he says.
“Nowhere near as prolific as it is now – and as we know, it’s vastly underreported. We have international partners we can work with, but with some of these crimes, we really need victims to be more aware of what’s occurring and be more savvy because the focus has got to be on prevention.”
Lately, there have been a string of crimes against elderly residents via scams that have been around, for about ten years, involving spiritual blessings.
“All of a sudden it’s just popped up on the Northern Beaches,” he says.
“It’s a syndicate that’s worked very very effectively over many years.”
“It’s actually very hard to steal a car these days.”
I raise the perception about increased youth crime, and in particular car thefts, over the last 24 months.
While not denying them as events that have occurred, he says there hasn’t been any significant jump in these areas statistically, just an increased awareness of them.
“It’s actually very hard to steal a car these days,” he adds.
“They’ve had immobilisers in cars the last 15-20 years at least, and a lot of cars now have trackers in them. It’s extremely hard to steal a car… unless you have the key.”
Many on the Beaches are guilty of still leaving the door unlocked and keys easy to find.
There are fewer break-ins than there used to be, too, he says.
“But yes, occasionally we do have some youth groups come through where they have crept into people’s homes and taken their cars for joy riding,” he explains.
However, it’s very easy to catch the culprits.
“In this day and age, people love to post and boast,” he says, pointing to the phenomenal number of crimes that are caught on film by the perpetrators themselves.
“Offenders seem to have some thrill in recording committing a crime… which is great evidence for us.”
There’s one other advantage the Northern Beaches has for anyone coming into the area to steal a vehicle – there’s a couple of choke points that make it easy to stop offenders before they’ve crossed over the Spit.
But what of the local youth population? Do we have a particular problem with youth crime in this area?
“Considering the sheer number of kids we have on the Northern Beaches, the vast majority of them are good,” he explains.
“I think it’s a very small number that seems to cause a lot of grievances, but we do know from previous experience that the vast majority of them grow out of it.”
Superintendent Duncan says he thought there were still opportunities to work with some of the more disadvantaged youths, but it’s worth remembering that kids will do stupid things, which is one of the reasons the Young Offenders Act is so effective. Young people get a caution, or a warning and the majority do not go on to reoffend.
“I think some people have got a short memory,” he explains.
“We were all kids once and probably did some stupid things, but it wasn’t caught on social media, and it wasn’t caught on CCTV. We need to be mindful of not trying to criminalise more people into the criminal justice system.”
He says if something has been done that is criminal, they do want to know about it and they will intervene, but people should be setting “reasonable expectations”.
“If you look around Australia, we are not doing too bad, we’re doing okay,” he adds.
By the close of the chat, it’s clear the new Area Commander is now exactly where he wants to be.
“When you join the NSW Police Force, you sign the dotted line and say you will serve wherever you are told to go,” he says.
But I’m guessing when you were told this time was good news?
“I was very lucky.”
We thank the busy and very senior Area Superintendent for his time, his openness, and his role alongside Northern Beaches Police Area Command Crime Manager, Detective Chief Inspector Michael Boutouridis in helping bring a regular crime watch summary, published on our website and their social channels from now on. View the most recent one here: Teen sextortions, boat thefts and an expensive mistake at the pub in this week’s Crime Watch Northern Beaches
