4 minute read
Like father, like son
Editorial and photography: Jesse Wray-McCann
The number of Victoria Police officers who have followed their parents into the job is almost countless, but Pete and Aari Mellington are a rarity.
The father and son have the unique honour of both serving at single-member stations within the same police service area (PSA).
Earlier this year, Aari, a senior constable, became the sole police officer in the small town of Jeparit.
He follows in the footsteps of his father Pete, a leading senior constable, who has been at the single-member station in Natimuk for the past nine years.
As the crow flies, the two small towns are about 65km apart in the Horsham PSA in the state’s west.
It’s a region that has forged both of their careers.
“My first station straight out of the Academy was Horsham, so in those first few years, I was living at Natimuk with Mum and Dad, and I got to see through Dad what single-member policing is all about,” Aari said.
“Dad’s people skills are the crux of what he does at Natimuk.
His knowledge of the town and his ability to remember things about the people in his community are why he is such a good fit there.
Aari grew up seeing his father as a police officer, with Pete having started at the Victoria Police Academy when Aari was five years old, before going on to work at stations such as Bacchus Marsh, Ballarat, Horsham, Murtoa and Dimboola.
Pete never tried to pressure or influence Aari to join Victoria Police but had some valuable advice for him when he decided on a career in policing.
“I told him to go out and work other jobs and learn how to deal with all kinds of people because the best tool we have in this job is knowing how to talk to people,” Pete said.
“I’ve been to some pretty nasty jobs that have ended up not so bad because we were able to talk to that person.”
Aari duly followed his father’s wise advice, working a number of different jobs around Australia, including in retail and at an oat mill.
“Fresh out of school, I had a 9-5 job at Retravision and that was dealing with people day-in, day-out. Some were happy to see you and some angry to see you because their TV isn’t working,” Aari said.
“When I was crushing oats, I got promoted to supervisor very quickly and I was only 19 or so.
“I was working with blokes 30 or 40 years my senior who did not want to listen to a young little whippersnapper, so I had to work out how to manage that.”
It proved to be priceless experience when Aari and a colleague responded to a mental health incident in Dimboola where a teenager was threatening his family with a knife and an axe.
“We were talking with this kid for nearly an hour but he was very irate, very wound-up,” he said.
“But then he pointed at our police car and said, ‘You’re lucky it’s a Holden’, and that was our in.”
Aari and his colleague began talking to the teenager about their fellow appreciation of cars and eventually convinced him to put the weapons down and get the help he needed.
“That was a career highlight for me because without that ability to connect with him, it was a situation that could have ended badly with injuries or fatalities,” he said.
While Pete has been a constant sounding board for Aari throughout his career, it has not always been one-way traffic.
As Victoria Police continued to improve and update its response to family violence matters, Pete was able to seek help from Aari, who had learned a new digital reporting system fresh out of the Academy.
“I’m no good at technology, but I can just phone Aari and say, ‘Show me how to make this work’,” Pete said.
“It’s better than making myself look like a dill when I ask for help from someone I don’t know.”
The pair’s boss, Senior Sergeant Eddie Malpas is thrilled to have them both serving their small communities.
"When Aari started at Jeparit, I thought 'Do I need to do the coach's address? Do I need to say 'This is what I expect, this is what we want?'," Sen Sgt Malpas said.
“But I haven’t, and I won’t need to, because everything I know about Aari, and the fact that he is his father’s son, tells me that he well and truly understands the role and he’s going to do really well.
“On a professional and personal level, it’s really special having them out here both as single-members and I’m excited to see what they can get up to.”
