Personal reason fuels policing passion

Editorial: Danielle Ford

Photography: Jesse Wray-McCann

Like many people, Detective Senior Sergeant Leemara Fairgrieve has seen the terrible impacts of illicit drugs firsthand.

“Someone I know became addicted to drugs several years ago and, since then, I’ve seen their life spiral,” she said.

“This person grew up in the most beautiful, normal, working-class family and had the world at their feet.

“Now, because someone wanted to make a bit of money through a drug sale, their life is destroyed, and a family is shattered.”

However, unlike most people, Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve has also witnessed the horrific impacts of illicit drugs almost every day at work for the past 21 years.

Since deciding to ditch her scissors and leave the hairdressing world for policing in 2002, Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve has seen the many different ways drugs can impact people, families and communities.

Having worked in general duties policing, family violence and sexual offences investigation teams, highway patrol and regional crime investigation units, it’s fair to say she’s seen a myriad of ways drugs can cause harm.

“I couldn’t count the number of jobs I’ve been to over the years that involve drugs in one way or another,” Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve said.

“Whether it’s a horrific road accident where the driver was high on drugs, a drug-fuelled violent attack or a homicide or shooting that was linked to organised crime groups, so many of the jobs I’ve responded to in my career are fundamentally linked to drug use or the illicit drug trade.”

Fed up with responding to incidents that were the end product of the illicit drug trade, Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve decided to refocus her career on dismantling the syndicates that import and move these drugs through the community.

“I want to put everything I have into helping dismantle these groups,” she said.

“They’re killing our community – preying on vulnerable people and playing a huge part in destroying thousands of lives.

“They cause so much harm and pain and it’s all built on nothing other than a greed for financial gain.”

In 2022, the determined detective secured a job in the Organised Crime Division’s Trident Taskforce, a Victoria Police-led multi-agency partnership with Australian Border Force and the Department of Home Affairs that investigates organised crime, working to identify vulnerabilities within port facilities and maritime activity.

“As Australia is ocean-bound, our ports are hugely vulnerable to organised crime due to the number of imports and exports processing through them every day,” she said.

“The majority of illicit goods that come into Australia come by sea, and the work done by Trident helps disrupt that flow of goods, including drugs, from getting to the streets.”

During her time at Trident, it became clear to Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve that this was the space she wanted to be working in.

“I’d spent about 20 years talking to the people who were, for lack of a better phrase, collateral damage to these organised crime groups, so I found such a purpose in this work,” Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve said.

“Every ounce of drugs, or chemicals used to manufacture drugs, that we intercepted on vessels or at ports, was an ounce of drugs that wouldn’t end up in our community.”

Since joining Trident, Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve has worked in multiple teams across Victoria Police’s Organised Crime Division, including Joint Organised Crime Taskforce, of which Trident is now a part.

She worked in Joint Taskforce Icarus, a collaboration with the Australian Federal Police that focuses on investigating and stopping the movement of drugs through domestic and international mail, before moving into the Major Drug Squad, where she heads up two of the squad’s investigation teams.

The Major Drug Squad investigates commercial drug trafficking or cultivation operations.

“The main mission of the squad is the same as my personal passion – to investigate, disrupt, dismantle and hold these large drug trafficking groups to account,” Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve said.

But her move into specialist crime fields means Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve no longer has a front-row seat to the lives she and her team are helping to change.

“When you are working in the regions, you engage with people and see first-hand the impact your investigation has,” she said.

“You get to see the reaction from someone when you get an answer or a good outcome in court.

“The work we do in the Organised Crime Division teams is more removed from the victims of the crime and focused on the perpetrators.

“While we get the result of seizing drugs before they get to the community, we don’t physically see the impact that seizure has on the community, but we can think about it in numbers.”

This change, however, doesn’t make the work any less meaningful or important to Det Sen Sgt Fairgrieve.

“Every kilogram of drugs that our work stops from ending up on the streets is a win for our community and something to be proud of,” she said.

“If that person in my life whose life has been taken over and ruined by drugs never had access to buy them, things could have been entirely different.

“So, while I don’t get to see every person my work is helping, it’s such important work that I know is, in some way or another, helping many lives, and that’s what drives me.”