Wyndham’s new chief of police, Inspector Marty Allison, is on the beat.
He joins Wyndham police after the promotion of former Inspector Frank Sells, who moves into the position of superintendent of Victoria Police’s Road Policing Strategy Division within Road Policing Command.
Inspector Allison comes with 36 years policing experience under his belt, starting at St Albans and encompassing a range of both uniform and crime investigation roles.
Most recently, he was based at Footscray police station as investigation and response manager of Westgate division, which includes Wyndham, Hobsons Bay and Maribyrnong.
He headed up all 10 crime units of the division – including the family violence, armed robbery, sex offence and child investigation teams.
“This position was offered to me, and I jumped at the chance to come here,” Inspector Allison said.
He believes there’s still a “significant” amount of family violence in Wyndham going unreported, especially among new and emerging communities, and he plans to focus on this during his tenure.
He also cited youth crime as a key focus for local police.
“Dealing with young people is enormously rewarding,” he said.
“There’s some challenges there for us to try and engage with our youth, and work with agencies, such as the council, to come up with meaningful and sustainable programs to keep our youth out of strife and out of police attention.”
However, Inspector Allison notes that overall crime in Wyndham is currently on a downward trend.
“I’ve been told that in recent times, we’ve arrested and remanded a lot of recidivist, volume crime offenders, and that may have contributed to this,” he said.
“Anecdotally, we’re receiving information that there’s a shortage of ice at the moment, and that may be contributing to it.”
