They say a full moon has an impact on our mood. In emergency services we certainly seem to see an impact. In the past week, the team have again had a busy time, responding to (among other things) 12 family harm events, six mental health incidents, five traffic crashes, three assaults, two burglaries and two stolen car reports.
Deb Hann – Senior Constable at the Cambridge Farmers’ Market. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
This week I want to talk about alcohol. A large number of incidents that require police intervention are caused or exacerbated by alcohol – including family harm, disorderly behaviour, assaults and road trauma.
How we address this is multi-faceted. We proactively police alcohol licencing through regular hotel and off licence visits to ensure adherence to district licencing regulations. We also vet liquor licence and manager certificate applications made to Waipa District Council. Police conduct proactive alcohol checkpoints and respond to driving complaints to prevent road trauma by taking drunk and drugged drivers off our roads. We have a reassurance presence aimed at maintaining order at sports events and other fixtures where alcohol is served.
Part of our response to family harm involves identifying contributing factors which may include referrals to non-governmental organisations for alcohol and drug counselling. If you think that alcohol is a problem for you or someone you know, alcohol and drug counselling is available free for adults over the age of 18 at Cambridge Community House.
I received a text last week pretending to be from ANZ bank. The message said someone had changed my online banking details and provided me a link to follow to change my access details. It easily stood out as a scam to me because I don’t hold accounts with that bank, but if I had and wasn’t aware, clicking on the link could have given my bank details to the scammers. Please remember that you should never click on links received in such a way. Phone the organisation or navigate completely separately to their website to confirm the validity of it.
Within the last week a member of the public also reported receiving a call from someone purporting to represent BNZ bank. The phone call followed what seemed to the victim to be a normal process of obtaining their access number and authentication details. Unfortunately this was a scam and the victim subsequently found a sum of money had been transferred out of their bank account without their permission.
Banks will not proactively contact you and ask for your personal banking details. If you ever receive such a call, do not engage with the caller and contact your bank directly by a publicly advertised number to advise them.
Lastly, if you are heading away this Matariki long weekend, remember to be patient, drive to the conditions and immediately report to Police any dangerous driving that is putting others at risk.
