Bush Cop makes Bourke home

Acting Inspector Robert Taylor in Bourke last week Photo TWH

Acting Inspector of the Central North Police District Robert Taylor is proud to call himself a ‘bush cop’. Inspector Taylor has spent his entire career as a police officer and admits it must be in the family genes.

“My three uncles and my grandfather were all members of the Queensland Police Force,” he said.

“When I finished school and decided I would also join the force I don’t think my mother was very happy about it, but I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

Although he grew up on the coast around Tweed Heads, it was during his first posting to the bush, after a couple of years policing in Sydney, that he found his calling.

“After my first stints at Marrickville and Maroubra I was posted to Walgett and Lightning Ridge and that’s when I got my first taste of the bush,” he said.

“I was posted back to the coast as lock up keeper at Bowraville near Coffs Harbour, but I knew I wanted to go back out west.”

In 2003, Acting Inspector Taylor was promoted to Sergeant and posted to Bourke – coincidentally at the same time as Bourke’s now Superintendent Andrew Hurst was based here as a Sergeant and when the former Superintendent Greg Moore was also here as a Detective Sergeant.

Read more in the printed edition of the Western Herald.