New training scenes of the crime
Volume 11, No. 55, November 02, 2006

CRIME Scene Investigation training facilities within Defence are now better than some of their civilian counterparts following the refurbishment of the Defence Police Training Centre.

The joint training centre located at Lamia Barracks Holsworthy has just undergone a $4.9 million facelift to modernise the centre.

WO2 Jason Veitch, DPTC OpsWO, said the Scenes of Crime Officer classroom had become outdated due to the rapid change in technology.

“The upgraded physical evidence lab that we have here now is on par with the NSW Police training lab. They’re talking about using ours,” WO2 Veitch said.

WO2 Veitch said the DPTC facilities were well overdue for an upgrade.

“The facilities here were 15 years old and were dated,” WO2 Veitch said.

Private contractor Hansen Yuncken conducted the eight-month renovations, which include a new operational safety training area, student accommodation and purpose-built instructor’s building.

WO2 Veitch said the redevelopment also included new lecture rooms and interview training rooms.

“A big part of investigations is conducting interviews in accordance with the Defence Force Discipline Act,” he said.

“We did have six interview rooms which were run down. We’ve now got nine state-of-the-art interview rooms with DVD recorders.”

“The lecture rooms were set up prior to the computer age, but now the lecture rooms are set up so everyone has a work station with computers at each work station.”

Defence police often conduct courses with their civilian counterparts, such as NSW Police Superintendent Mick Plotecki, who was impressed with the modernised centre.

“This is a very impressive facility, as is the rest of the barracks,” Supt Plotecki said.

“At the moment we use [DPTC] extensively on an ad hoc basis for local training but I can see some significant potential to align and integrate training with the NSW Police and the ADF.

“I hope we can capitalise on it in terms of an integrated model of training and an integrated model of developing a skill set that is common to both of us.”