"Over Covid we were doing prevention things like walking through supermarkets, checking businesses to see if they should be opening, industrial areas, stopping cars."
It was an unexpected start to the role for Brett, who had always thought that he would wind up being a police officer.
Brett graduated from the Royal New Zealand Police College on February 28 and started at the Taupō Police Station the week after.
"I'm originally from Sheffield in the UK. My parents moved out there eight years ago and I stayed at uni in the UK and had no intention of moving out [to New Zealand]," Brett says.
He came over for a working holiday, spent 18 months travelling around and then returned to the United Kingdom, where he worked in the hospitality industry before changing his mind about moving to New Zealand. His girlfriend was keen to emigrate too so they returned in January 2018.
Brett worked at Huka Lodge while he waited for his police application to be accepted.
"I loved working in hospitality, it was good because you can work anywhere and it's easy to transfer and you meet all types of people."
Brett is one of the 1800 new police officers promised by the Government but despite the recruitment drive, says being accepted for the police was "a long, drawn out process". It took around 16 months from the beginning of his application until he finally started police college in October 2019.
"There's long periods where you don't hear anything. Some people you speak to, it's eight months and some it's two years but it isn't faster than 12 months."
The 16-week police training course, with a two-week placement in Taupō during the Christmas break, was intense.
"It's pretty full on. Sixteen weeks for how much you do actually learn is pretty good to be fair. I wouldn't say it's difficult but there's definitely lots to learn. The first couple of weeks you just get bombarded with all this information but the physical side of it was really good and the cognitive training about processing information when you're under stress was really good and interesting."
He says the hardest thing about the training was being away from his partner for so long as study requirements plus the distance between Taupō and Wellington made it too far to come back for weekends.
During their first two years as probationary constables, new officers have a field training officer who acts as a mentor and helps them with the different standards required for the new officer to complete their probation and become a fully-pledged cop.
Brett is currently doing road policing. He recently attended his first fatal crash and says seeing the amount of work that went into investigating it was an eye-opener.
He expects his next placement will be in a frontline public safety team which is a good way to learn all aspects of policing.
Once their probationary period is over, police can branch out into a range of different careers. Brett says at this stage it's too early to know whether there's a particular area he would like to pursue.
"I came in with no idea and I'm still unsure at the moment but maybe CIB (Criminal Investigation Branch, which investigates crimes) and the more serious crime, but I've not really had a good look at everything, to be fair... I'd like to see everything before I decide."
Police have temporarily paused taking applications for new officers following an increase in application numbers but once applications reopen, Brett says it's a career he would recommend it to others, partly because other staff are easy to get along with and willing to help, and partly because of the excitement of not knowing what each day will bring.
"You never know what you're going to come to work with... you never know what's going to happen."
