Community
13 May, 2026
Changing of the guard
A NEW face has made their way to the Port Campbell Police Station as Leading Senior Constable Taya McLeish has stepped into the role vacated by the much-loved Scott Thompson earlier this month.
Ld Snr Const McLeish, hailing from Princetown, was previously stationed at the Warrnambool crime scene unit before deciding it was time for a change of scenery.
“I was trying to get back closer to home, just with family and kids and all that kind of stuff, and Scott’s position I knew was coming up,” she said.
“I did some temp duties last year just to see if it was a good fit for me at the station and a good fit for me being here and it worked really well so I applied for Scott’s position when he retired and was lucky enough to get it.
“After starting in Melbourne, I did 12 years at Kerang and then had four years doing forensics and crime scene services in Swan Hill, then I transferred to Warrnambool and did another six years of crime scene there.
“Now I’m back on the van, so it’ll be a bit different – a lot of things have changed, the technology and all the paperwork has changed, but the stuff on the street is still the same.”
Ld Snr Const McLeish said she was looking forward to the opportunity to spend more time with her kids now she was working closer to home.
“I was after a bit of a change and I’ve got four kids so I was just trying to manage work and driving to Warrnambool from Princetown every day was starting to take its toll a little bit,” she said.
“It was hard not being available for the kids, and we run a farm out at Princetown as well.
“So trying to juggle it all was getting to be a bit much and just missing out on things with the kids – it’s more of a lifestyle change for me to come here.”
As a crime scene investigator, Ld Snr Const McLeish said she used to attend crime scenes such as break ins and process photographs, fingerprints and DNA.
Now, she’s back on the street, patrolling and attending calls for crime in the area.
“As a Leading Senior Constable I’m out on patrol, meeting with the community – we try and have a lot of community engagement with business owners, schools and farmers,” Ld Snr Const McLeish said.
“We would investigate any crime that gets reported here with the assistance of other agencies if we need to.
“There’s a lot of traffic policing as well, being in such a busy tourist area, so we try to get out on the road as much as we can and just be a visible presence more, especially in the summer periods.
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“We’d attend any other sort of family violence, mental health, rescues in the area and things like that.
“I’m looking forward to working with the community.”
Ld Snr Const McLeish said she’s always been drawn to country policing.
“I don’t like bad things happening to good people so I really like catching crooks,” she said.
“I like building those relationships with people and the community – they rely on us to do our job and we also really rely on the community to help us do our job as well.
“Forming those good relationships with members of the community, business owners and local farmers would probably be a big one, helping them best secure their farm equipment.
“They’re really vulnerable to farm crimes at the moment, like diesel theft and things like that are really prevalent, so working with farmers and going out to their farms and seeing how they can best secure their farms and equipment to prevent crimes from happening in the first place.”
Ld Snr Const McLeish said she knew from a young age she wanted to be a police officer and enjoys the thrill of something new happening every day in the job.
“From a really young age I knew I couldn’t be in an office job or things where it was just the same thing every day,” she said.
“I think what sort of attracted me to the police force was the excitement of it and you can turn up to work and you just don’t know what’s going to happen.
“Even now, after 25 years, something will come up and you’ll go to a job and you’ll be like, ‘I’ve never come across this before’ – you’re always getting thrown something.
“You’re always thinking on your feet and things change really quickly and you have to be really dynamic in how you approach things.
“Hopefully the community welcomes me and I’m a fairly chatty person so come up and say hi and I’m happy to help in any way I can.”
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