'Extraordinary' cop leaves after 20 years

MOVING ON: Senior Constable Iain Cheyne worked his last day in the force yesterday, as he embarks on a new career with Euro City Car Dealership. PHOTO/WARREN BUCKLAND

Senior Constable Iain Cheyne donned his blue uniform for the last time on Friday.

After a 20-year stint in the New Zealand Police, serving Hawke's Bay locals for 15 of those, Mr Cheyne is moving on.

Known for his central role in the development of Roadsafe Hawke's Bay Youth Alcohol Expo, which educates students about safe driving, he said: "It's time to move on and try something different."

While his next venture as a sales consultant at Euro City Car Dealership will be different, cars remain a constant as they always have done throughout his life.

He was involved with cars before becoming a police officer and his first five years in the force, in Auckland, were spent identifying stolen cars.

Mr Cheyne has attended a number of car crashes in Hawke's Bay and has been instrumental in the youth expo's duration.

Instead of pin-pointing just one memorable moment from his time in the force, the former constable said seeing the attitudes change among some of the more challenging school groups he had worked with would stick with him.

"There's a bit of satisfaction in that," he said. "Just explaining that we're not telling them what to do but that their decisions can have future consequences."

He was also involved in rolling out a similar programme for prison inmates and people involved with probation. Through these different groups he said he had seen how attitudes needed to be changed throughout the generations before messages really sunk in.

"We try to explain it's not a game."

He said many people thought if they drank and drove home and did not get caught then they had won - "a lot of people grow up in that environment".

"I've stopped cars and had people in the back yelling at me, telling me they remember me and they've got a sober driver."

Constable Mark Brinsdon said he had worked with Mr Cheyne for 12 years, and believed he was an "absolutely extraordinary policeman".

"He has always gone that extra mile and his professionalism is incredible," he said. "I'm very honoured to have worked alongside him and to call him a personal friend of mine."

St John medical technician Natalie Buck said Mr Cheyne's departure from the expo would be a huge loss - "he's very dedicated and passionate". She had worked alongside him at the expo for four of the six years it had been running.