By Chris Thomson | posted on May 17, 2018
GREAT Southern Police Superintendent Dom Wood will return to Perth where he is set to become the state’s top traffic cop.
“I’ve done my tenure, so I’m off in July, August,” he told The Weekender.
He said that, come July, he will have been in Albany for three years.
“It’s gone very quickly,” he said.
“I love the region, I love the people.”
Mr Wood said Superintendent Ian Clarke, who currently works in the police professional standards unit in Perth, would fill his shoes.
“He’s a really nice fella, a good bloke,” he said.
“He’s got a good background, in traffic for a while as a superintendent, and done some crime work, and worked country as well.
“He was an OIC up in Kununurra, and also in Dunsborough, and has some detective background as well.”
After a handover to Mr Clarke in July, Mr Wood will become Superintendent, State Traffic.
“You can, if all the stars line up, try to push [your tenure] out to maybe four [years], which I was kind of thinking, maybe [until] Christmas, but they said ‘no’, they want me to take over and do the State traffic role up at Midland,” he said.
Immediately before coming to Albany from Perth, Superintendent Wood was the police force’s Manager, Media and Communications.
“We’ve got a couple of older kids back up in Perth, and we always knew I was never going to retire down here,” he said.
“I’m too young to retire, so I always knew this was about a three-year tenure.
“I’ll still get the chance to come back down here with a booze bus, maybe.”
He said he’d miss Albany’s bush walks and coffee shops.
“My wife and I were out on the boat on the weekend, the Vancouver Street Festival became a bit hot, and I said: ‘C’mon, let’s get the boat out’,” he said.
“We went out with a couple of friends of ours, and we were followed by dolphins in the harbour.
“So, I’ll miss the town, and the community is a very good community, a very friendly community.”
In other policing news, Mr Wood said a drug detection police dog was on the cards for the Great Southern (Drug dog for GS police, p.5 of today’s Weekender).
Mr Wood said one priority he would pass on to Mr Clarke would be to “keep pushing” for a canine to join the ranks of the local constabulary.
