Sunday Star Times
February 1, 2004

From rabble rouser to role model
by David Fisher

He wanted to be the country's first Maori police commissioner.

Clint Rickards, who started life on the wrong side of the tracks, was headed for the top.

His crime-fighting methods won praise from police commissioner George Hawkins. And his appointment in 2001 as assistant commissioner was the sort of vote of confidence that marked his 20 years as blessed with fortune - but earned with hard work.

When appointed, commissioner Rob Robinson said Rickards had beaten "strong candidates" for the job.

"He has a strong operational background, is a successful operational and senior manager, and brings an operational perspective to my close support group."

A burly 1.8 metres, Rickards, 43, is an imposing figure. His huge, tattooed arms can bench-press 205kg, he weighs around 130kg and prefers a shaved head.

Perhaps he wasn't so far from the rabble rouser he was in Rotorua, where he was kicked out of intermediate school and brought home by police for breaking into buildings, stealing and committing petty crime.

"If something wasn't nailed down it would find its way into my pocket," Rickards said in a 2001 interview with the Waikato Times.

But even then, joining the police and wearing the blue uniform was a dream Rickards had long held. He would spend afternoons with his dog Fury, a german shepherd, teaching commands as if it were a police dog.

Discipline became important in Rickard's sporting life - he was a star of the Edmund Rice High School rugby team and went on to become a judo expert.

Joining the police aged 18, he had a gun in his face in his first week. Displaying the persistence that would mark out Rickards' rise to the top, he spent four hours chasing the offender.

"It's the variety of challenges and the unknown that I love. You never know what you are going to get."

Rickards made detective in four years, then worked as an undercover police officer investigating a drug syndicate in Invercargill.

He returned to Rotorua, then moved to Hawke's Bay, where he became a senior sergeant. He went back to the South Island, running Southland's CIB, then in 1994 was made area controller of Papakura in South Auckland.

After Gisborne police boss Rana Waitai left the force for politics in 1997, Rickards took his job as superintendent district commander. When he left there for Waikato's top policing job, he became the nation's youngest police chief, crediting his success in meeting crime targets to community support.

"It should be remembered that crime fighting is not solely the function of the police - it should be incumbent upon all people in the community to address these problems," he told the New Zealand Herald in 1999.

Rickards was also building an impressive academic record. He has a masters degree in public policy, was expected to have completed his doctorate by now and had completed a business degree and a diploma in Maori development.

Working in the Waikato was a return home for Rickards and the feeling of pride swelled as he was welcomed on to his home marae, Mokai Kainga in Kawhia. His tribal connections are to Ngati Apakura and Ngati Hikairo of Tainui. He had also formed a relationship with a fellow officer, Tania Eden, of Ngati Porou descent, who went on to become the cultural liaison officer. Last year, she was working as a police inspector in the office of the commissioner with Rickards.

Also in Waikato, he demonstrated his belief that there was more to policing than catching criminals. He set up a Maori advisory group and helped develop initiatives aimed at reducing Maori offending.

Under his watch, more children were eating breakfast before school, more Maori got driver's licences and police became involved with local iwi. More officers were seen on patrol, and a range of crime-fighting programmes were started.

"If you keep doing the same things the same way you will keep getting the same results," he said. "And if things don't change it is my people that would be affected and to me that is unacceptable."

Things did change. In the year Rickards came to town, Waikato's crime rate fell by more than 12%, the biggest drop in the country.

Hawkins was full of praise, visiting Rickards on the day the national figures were released and citing policing in the Waikato as an example for the country to follow.

"This performance demonstrates a police district that is in touch with its community and knows how to curb the incidence of crime," he said.

The figures were credited to "the ordinary policeman and policewoman doing a good job".

"This excellent achievement ought to be acknowledged. Waikato police have crime-fighting programmes that are designed specifically for this district. They are achieving results."

Results that took Rickards close to the job he had wanted, and strived for - the commissioner's.

He was fond of saying: "The police force has given me everything I ever wanted."

Rickards, who may be stood down tomorrow, faces being questioned as he was while a teenager - back on the other side of the law.