Our People
22 July, 2025
Cops pick a trifecta
A local police stalwart inadvertently cracked a series of cases off the back of one warrant following a police raid on a property near Elmhurst last month.
Leading Senior Constable Dale Harrison shared details of an Avoca Police operation to execute a warrant based off information regarding the whereabouts of a custom-made trailer that had been stolen from Avoca Pétanque Club in May.
Working in conjunction with a unit from Ararat Police, not only did they locate the Pétanque club’s gear but also stumbled across a car which had gone missing from the Buangor area in late May.
“We recovered the pétanque stuff immediately, and then there was a stolen vehicle,” said
LSC Harrison about what, at that stage, seemed to be twice as good an outcome than anticipated.
“At the time, that was a feel-good moment because, being a local of Avoca, I realise how much hard work the Pétanque club and the recreation reserve and all that, put into getting grants and donations to be able to gain things, so to get their trailer back was magnificent.”
As police scoured the scene, they then found a box of mixed personal items that didn’t necessarily have any useful identifying features to determine who it might belong to, until they noticed a letter written decades ago from a daughter to her mother.
LSC Harrison, upon reading the name signed at the bottom of the letter, realised he now had a trifecta on his hands – The name? Natalie Hughes, a former Olympian whose personal memorabilia from a decorated international Basketball career had been stolen two months ago from Buangor.
“I’d seen that name through something that was done in the Pyrenees Advocate way back when it was first stolen, so I recognised it,” he said.
“In some of the belongings there was actually a letter she wrote when she was a child to her Mum, and she wrote ‘Natalie Hughes’ on it,” he said, “so we sort of put two-and-two together, and we’ve been able to get Natalie and her belongings back together.”
After initially returning the one box of items to the grateful ex-basketball star, gym bags full of Hughes’ stolen sporting memorabilia were discovered in the trunk of the recovered stolen vehicle once it had been processed by Police in Maryborough.
For LSC Harrison, who proudly serves as a policeman in the community he grew up in, seeing how his work led to positive outcomes is profoundly meaningful to him.
“It’s not as if there’s a million Olympians living amongst us, they’re very rare,” he said.
“For Natalie to lose something so valuable and meaning so much to her, and then to get the stuff back, that was another feel-good moment.
“It makes you proud to be able to do what you do, to get it back was very special.”
Read More: Avoca