Detective Anthony (Tony) Raymond Harrod died in 1990 while on a cannabis recovery operation. Photo / New Zealand Police Museum Collection
September 29 marks Police Remembrance Day, an annual day of recognition for police officers who lost their lives in the act of duty. Thirty-five years ago, Whanganui Detective Anthony Raymond Harrod died during a cannabis recovery operation.
Detective Anthony Raymond Harrod, known as Tony, was born in Dunedin on August 29, 1947.
He spent most of his life in Dunedin, attending Christian Brothers High School, before starting police training in Wellington in 1976, aged 29.
Harrod served in the New Zealand Police for 14 years, 12 of them in Dunedin before moving to Whanganui in 1988 with his wife Dallas Barns and daughters Jaye Harrod and Philippa Harrod.
He worked in Whanganui for two years until, on December 17, 1990, his life was cut short.
Harrod was on board a Bell 206B helicopter to complete a cannabis recovery operation in the Waitōtara Valley in South Taranaki.
He and Detective Constable Calum McGillivray were suspended on a chain attached to the cargo hook under the helicopter when the harness came loose after the carabiner twisted and pushed back the keeper.
Harrod plummeted to the ground from an unsurvivable height and died instantly.
Jaye was 18 at the time of his death and was nearing the end of her first year of nursing training in New Plymouth.
Nearly 35 years on, she still remembers the tragic day.
“The morning he came down the stairs, I remember thinking how alive he looked. He just had really rosy cheeks that morning and I remember thinking ‘Gee, he just looks really alive’ and of course that was the last time I ever saw him alive which is bizarre.
“We’d been over in Palmerston North doing Christmas shopping and came back to buy some steak for dad for dinner at the supermarket when we heard what had happened.”
Worse was the fact that Tony had told Dallas he was going to stop performing cannabis-recovery operations at the end of the year.
“He felt that, in pulling out all of the cannabis, it was really starting to affect his moods; I don’t know if it was all the oils but it certainly came with a lot of hard work and its own dangers,” she said.
Senior Sergeant Rob Rattenbury was sent to recover Harrod’s body, with Detective Sergeant Colin Irvine, Sergeant Bill Nicholson and helicopter pilot Charlie Anderson.
Rattenbury, 38 at the time, described the recovery as the worst day in his 23-year police career and a contributing factor to his retiring a few years later.
“I said to Tony, ‘Be careful because you are a bit older than the other guys’, just as you say to a mate. Then in the afternoon we got the news that one of the team had fallen off the helicopter and was no longer with us - it was pretty dreadful news,” Rattenbury said.
“It was the saddest day in my life, really. I’m a bit upset even talking about it.”
Rattenbury described the flight back to Whanganui with Harrod as emotional.
“It was a beautiful, quiet, sunny evening flying back into town and even though the chopper was noisy, all I can remember is peace and quietness,” he said.
“It was absolutely devastating - that afternoon in the police station was awful.”
Jaye said her father expressed his concerns and discomfort with the harness to his colleague McGillivray while they were suspended and wanted to relieve the tension.
She said she had heard that there had been an instance in the New Zealand Army a few years earlier with that particular carabiner, resulting in a soldier falling into water but surviving.
“It was a shame because, after dad fell and died, they discontinued the use of that particular harness. It has never been used since - it is unfortunate that it didn’t stop after the first anomaly,” she said.
The police were incredibly supportive of the family after Tony’s death but the following years were difficult, Jaye said.
“It was horrendous grief. I went straight into my mental health [nursing] module, which was pretty intense after having lost him. It has got lasting ripples throughout your life - losing him like that.
“Grief is difficult for anybody, let alone during the pretty formative years when you are 18. It was very difficult.
“Time heals, I guess, but he will always be missed, that is for sure,”
Jaye remembers Tony as a great father and man.
“He was a real joker, a real prankster. He was the life and soul of the party, just real good fun - he was very, very much loved by us and his community.
“He was super, super passionate about his job; he absolutely loved it and was very good at it from what I hear.”
Since 1886, 34 police officers have been killed by criminal acts, with another 63 dying as a direct result of their duties.
The 2025 Police Remembrance Day on September 29 will be held at the Royal NZ Police College in Porirua.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.