The Glenn Paton Family Violence, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Practitioner of the Year Awards were recently held at the Victoria Police Centre, with one winner being based in Bairnsdale.
Sergeant Pradeep Pai, who has been a Sergeant at Bairnsdale for the past five years, was the recipient of the Family Violence Highly Commended Award for the development of the highly successful Affected Family Member (AFM) Management Program – an initiative providing proactive and one-on-one support for Family Violence victims.
Sergeant Pai, who has been in the role of the Family Violence Liaison Officer at Bairnsdale Police station for over two years, designed an initiative at the station to support family violence victims.
The initiative is focussed on building strong relationships between Police and support services aiming at educating victims so they have the confidence to report family violence incidents and any family violence intervention order breaches in a timely manner.
Sergeant Pai’s role also involves monitoring all the family violence cases in the Bairnsdale area and working with families to link
them with support services such as Orange Door.
“I took on this role because of the increase of family violence in Bairnsdale and East Gippsland area which gives me the opportunity to work closely with the Family Violence Investigation unit and several support services who all have the common goal of helping and supporting Family violence victims,” Sergeant Pai said.
The awards – which are run by the Family Violence Command – recognise employees who have gone above and beyond while working in family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.
According to data from the Crime Statistics Agency, East Gippsland recorded 1783 family violence incidents during 2023, 1332 against females and 441 against men.
Per population of 100,000, East Gippsland topped the state ahead of other regional Local Government Areas (LGA) including Mildura, Latrobe, Horsham and Ararat.
