Special constable who volunteered 1,500 hours rewarded with permanent job

A special constable who volunteered over 1,500 hours for Nottinghamshire Police has been rewarded with a permanent job at the force.

Katherine Tremayne has become a fully-fledged police officer after completing the force’s ‘Special Constable to Police Constable’ fast-track programme, which also saw her study a policing degree at Nottingham Trent University.

The 21-year-old was offered the role of PC after racking up a staggering total of 1,587 hours while volunteering as a special constable between March 2020 and April 2021.

Special constables are volunteer police officers with the same powers as regular officers. They work in partnership with regular officers and the wider policing family, such as Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs).

Specials spend a minimum of four hours a week supporting their police colleagues to tackle crime in their communities – but Katherine’s contribution worked out at an incredible four hours a day.

“I was hooked,” she explained. “After my first shift, I had already fallen in love with it. Even beforehand, I knew I was going to love the role because I’m quite an inquisitive person and there’s the thrill of not knowing what you’re going to.”

As well as being rewarded with a full-time job as a police constable, Katherine was also presented with the Special of the Year prize at Nottinghamshire Police’s recent Force Awards ceremony, having clocked up the most volunteering hours in 2020-21.

She was nominated by Sergeant Simon Wragg, who said: “When Katherine was a special constable, the majority of her duties were with response officers and she impressed everyone.

“She always volunteered to attend incidents and worked well in the team. She was also very professional and did not get dismayed if an incident became complicated or required her to hand it over to a regular officer.

“She also showed amazing resilience in the role having attended the scene of fatal road accidents and sudden deaths.

“She was even the victim of an assault where a suspect at a domestic incident pulled out a handful of her hair. Despite this, she assisted her colleagues in bringing the situation under control and went back into the house to continue dealing with the incident before seeking medical attention.

“I was delighted when she became a full-time police officer. She is a fantastic police officer and a tremendous asset to both the force and the communities she serves.”

Katherine said she was determined to become a fully-fledged police officer in spite of what happened on the day she was assaulted.

Recalling the incident, she said: “When we arrived, the man became quite volatile really quickly and I ended up having my hair ripped out from the scalp. Another officer was bitten and another officer was kicked quite badly.

“It did knock me back a bit and I ended up taking two weeks off, which for me was pretty unheard of. I was always in as much as I could be. During that time off, I did think was this really what I wanted to do and I decided it was, because the job is about helping people.”

Katherine said she also loves the thrills, the camaraderie and the experience that frontline policing offers.She is based at Worksop Police Station and works on the frontline with response officers, as well as the Gedling proactive team and has been involved in some exciting incidents in 2020.

She said: “There are so many thrills in policing. I've lost count how many blue light runs I've been on and being in a car driving at high speeds, it's so exciting! You're going at that speed, whilst talking to officers and working how we are doing to handle the incident you are attending. A real thrill.“There is no role like it. One day you’re in a high speed pursuit, the next you are getting sworn at by criminals and the next you could be being thanked for doing such a great job!”

A television documentary highlighting some of the winners at this year's Force Awards was broadcast earlier this month (12 March).

Highlights include the dramatic moment officers finally brought justice to the door of a criminal after more than a decade on the run, the terrifying moment officers put their own lives on the line to save a man covered in petrol, and a look at some of the people with one of the most difficult jobs you can imagine – investigating some of the most serious and devastating collisions on our roads.

Notts Police: Operation 2021, presented by TV and radio host Iain Chambers, was broadcast on Notts TV and can also be viewed here: (23) Notts Police: Operation 2021 - YouTube