KEY POINTS:
Bryan Stewart, BEM, detective. Died aged 83
Bryan James Stewart was characterised at his funeral service in Pukekohe as a "unique character", a member of New Zealand's first armed offenders squad and the first man in charge of New Zealand's first drug squad in Auckland.
He was by his own account on his retirement in 1984 a hard man, always he insisted "very tough but very fair".
"A good detective has got to be a bit of a b ... ," he said. "He's got to be hard with hard men. As hard as them ... you have to make it quite clear you won't put up with any rubbish at all or they will just run right over the top of you."
But then Bryan Stewart did not start with the police as a pimply young constable. He joined up when he was 32.
By that time he had gone to various schools around Remuera in Auckland, then to Sacred Heart College.
He left there at 16, upped his age to 18 and joined the Army, serving during World War II in Egypt, Italy and Japan. And after knocking round at other jobs back home including "droving, freezing worker ... oh, you name it" he came to the police as "a grown man" and went to the CIB in 1960 after three years' service.
Detective Inspector Ian Hastings, who also became a drug squad head, described him as a "black and white man" - some might say a bit arrogant at times. "You had to know and understand him to become a friend and learn what he was like underneath. In my opinion, he was a street-smart operator with enormous common sense. He could get quickly to the essence of any problem."
Stewart worked, among countless other cases, on the famous Bassett Rd machinegun murder inquiry in Auckland. And in 1967 he was awarded a British Empire Medal "for services as a most conscientious, versatile and capable crime investigator". The following year he won a Churchill Fellowship and travelled to work with six other drug squads in Australia and Asia.
It would be fair to say that Bryan Stewart attracted some dislike and jealousy within the police and he was not one to bow to superiors.
"I wouldn't say I was great at public relations. In fact they said I was the worst they ever had," he recalled.
And he added "I'm not a great book man. In all my years on the job I never read right through the police regulations and instructions. Well, I found them rather boring, so I never bothered."
By the time he left the force Stewart thought there were too many people with university degrees, too many intellectuals working in the service. Being a good detective, he thought, did not require high intelligence.
"All you need is dedication and common sense. But that's my opinion. And I'm probably just about the last of my breed."
In retirement Bryan Stewart farmed at Waiau Pa in Franklin. He is survived by his wife June and six daughters.
