July 2000 Volume 81 Number 7 "serving the protectors"
Policing’s Best-Travelled Retiree
By Brett Williams

Now at the end of her career, one senior sergeant remembers the tough times women officers faced when, in the 1970s, they joined their male counterparts in operational police work.

olice corruption abroad has sometimes left Senior Sergeant Elke Pfau ashamed to say she was a cop. A 30-year veteran of SA law enforcement and former International Police Association president, she has moved among overseas communities struck by the scourge of criminal police conduct. And what she knows of corruption has reinforced her passionate support of police accountability.

“Sometimes,” she says, “when there’s a complaint made against a police officer and it’s frivolous, that’s taken overboard. Everybody else is believed before the police officer.

“But you need watchdogs. You don’t want to go like other police forces where there’s corruption. I don’t think it (entrenched corruption) would ever happen here, but you do (need watchdogs).”

Pfau concedes, however, that police can be traumatized by disbelieving anti-corruption investigators who “don’t look at all the evidence”.

But in contrast to her broad, current-day knowledge of local, national and international policing, Pfau’s 1970 foray into SAPOL was made with total innocence.

Once asked to take a statement from a child victim of father-daughter incest, Pfau, then 27, floundered. She had spent time in the military, travelled overseas and spoke German fluently, but, as a new policewoman, had never heard of incest!

Unable even to spell the word, she made a panicked search of her dictionary for hurried enlightenment - without success. Guidance finally came from her Women Police Branch supervisor.

“She told me what I had to take in the statement,” Pfau remembers. “I couldn’t believe that that (incest) happened.

“Even though I was 27 when I came in (to SAPOL), I was naive. Some things they told me that went on absolutely floored me.”

Nonetheless, Pfau pressed on in the Women Police Branch, whose members were barred from operational work. She says they had only to “hold the hands of detectives as they interviewed women and children”.

But when former commissioner, the late Harold Salisbury, disbanded the branch in 1973, Pfau moved with other women into uniformed, operational policing.

She remembers that, for most, the transition was “pretty tough”. Few women had ever experienced patrol work, and none was taught the Road Traffic Act. That was an act, Pfau says, under which SAPOL never expected women to make arrests.

“When I finally went out on the road,” she says, “it was a very sharp learning curve - how to go and pinch somebody out on the streets.”

Male and female officers had never before worked together in such close quarters as police patrol cars. Pfau remembers that it prompted male officers to take their new partners home for introductions - to their wives. The aim, she says, was to head off any “animosity”.

“They’d say that’s not equality nowadays,” she says, “but in those days it was a good thing to do. I got to know all the wives when I worked with their husbands. If you were out on a job all night, she’s not home worrying (or thinking): ‘What are they doing?’

“One of my partners used to say that he spent more time with me than he did with his wife.”

As her career continued, German-born Pfau would serve as a police academy instructor before stints with the Rape Squad and Port Adelaide CIB in the late 1970s. Through the ’80s, she served with the Drug Squad and the now defunct Operations Response Group.

And, because of a long-standing concern for victims, Pfau has been greatly fulfilled by her past 11 years with the Victims of Crime Branch.

“You can do some good,” she says. “You’re helping those who have suffered, especially the kids. When they tell their stories, you can see the relief on their faces.”

Today, as the branch’s officer-in-charge - and a Victim Support Service council member - Pfau speaks of her pride in the team under her command. “They’re the greatest bunch of people you can work with,” she says, “especially the girls in the Sexual Assault Section.

“They’re dedicated and caring. Not everybody can sit down day-in, day-out, listen to the stories they hear from victims and still smile and enjoy life. (Each) is a very special type of person to do that job.”

Now 56, Pfau reflects on her 1970 recruitment as “the best move I ever made” and says her career has been “great”. But in early 2000, she began to agonize over thoughts of retirement. She finally decided it was “about time I left the job”.

“It (the decision) was very hard,” she explains. “Thirty years is a long part of your life, and there’s a lot of emotional attachment to the job because you make good friends and meet good people.

“But I always wanted to leave when I knew the branch was set up and everything was okay. I believe that once I leave, the branch will be in good hands.”

Assistant Commissioner John White says Pfau’s 30 years’ experience and dedication will be a great loss to SAPOL. He remembers her as a role model to other policewomen in their move to operational work nearly 30 years ago.

“She’s been an excellent ambassador for SAPOL,” he says, “in both the national and international arenas.”

Some of the most cherished memories with which she will leave policing are from her earliest days in the job.

The 1973 case of a 14-year-old girl completely out of her parents’ control sticks in Pfau’s mind. The girl had “played truant”, continually run away from home and seemed destined to make nothing of her life. Her parents thought she might be helped by talking to a cop, and so took her to Angas St police headquarters.

Pfau spent nearly two hours speaking to the girl about her misdeeds, life and future, but felt nothing was achieved. She even wrote on a card: “There’s no hope for this girl”.

But two months later, the girl visited Pfau and thanked her for her guidance. She had indeed listened to the caring policewoman, gone back to school, and turned her life around. Pfau took delight in simply thinking: “Well, that’s one.”

In another early ’70s case, Pfau was faced with a female break-and-enter offender who would speak only to her. “I gave her a cigarette,” Pfau explains, “and after that I was her best friend.

“The problem was, she used to send me birthday and Christmas presents. I had to return them, and then found out she’d flogged them anyway. A little embarrassing.”

Pfau has watched a tide of change sweep across policing during her 30 years’ service. She rates moving women into operational work, the introduction of computers and SAPOL’s LSA concept as the most significant.

But while she supports the LSA system, she insists its introduction was premature. “If you had the staff,” she says, “LSAs are a great idea.

“You’ve got fewer staff and a lot more work, and that does affect morale. There should be a contingency plan to make certain we’ve always got the staff to do the work, without spreading thinner and thinner.”

Nonetheless, Pfau still believes policing to be a “good occupation”. She says that, despite the increasing rate of resignations by officers with 10 years’ service, young job seekers should see policing as a career.

And for women behind today’s thin blue line, she insists, life is much easier than it was 30 years ago. “I don’t believe in ‘fast-tracking’ women just because they are women,” she says.

“There’s always criticism as to why there’s no women in middle and upper management, but some women just aren’t interested - especially when they’ve got their families. So you can’t always say it’s the department that’s holding them back.”

After six years’ service as Police Association of SA Women’s Branch president, Pfau did not stand for re-election last February. And her departure from SAPOL late this month will mark the end of her association membership.

Police Association president, Peter Alexander, says Pfau has always had a great sense of “justice for others”. “Elke’s been very committed to the emerging role of women in the job - and in the association,” he says. “She’ll be missed.”

Only days into her retirement she will travel to New Zealand’s police college where, as a past IPA president, she will open a new wing. For leisure, she plans to take up golf and travel the few countries she has not yet seen, such as Russia and the Eastern bloc.

At the same time she will continue working with the Victim Support Service, Police Legacy and the German Club, of which she was recently elected vice-president.

“Sometimes I feel like I haven’t got time to come to work,” she says, “but now I can relax a little bit.”

• Sgt Pfau will be farewelled on July 26 at Fenwick Hall, first floor, PASA bldg, 27 Carrington St, Adelaide. The farewell organizers welcome all who wish to attend and ask that they contact the Sexual Assault Section for details.

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