Saying farewell to the Social Sergeant

A native of Carnaross, Dean spent the first half of his career as a detective in Dublin before before joining the then Louth/Meath Division where he led the detective unit in Trim before being appointed to his "dream job" in 2009 when he became Meath's first Crime Prevention Officer.

Since then Dean has travelled the length and breadth of the county talking to various groups and organisations, helping set up community alerts and neighbourhood watches, visiting businesses and individuals to advise on crime prevention as well as setting up the hugely successful Meath Crime Prevention page, the first such page in the country. Dean was also Meath's hostage negotiator for ten years which saw him involved in negotiating in kidnap situations but also working with people who were threatening suicide.

Reflecting on his time as Crime Prevention Officer, Dean who worked his last shift in Kells on Sunday, said there are very few bodies of people that he hasn't had some sort of interaction with over the years in his job and he had met a huge cross section of people and made many friends.

"The dream job was crime prevention, you are interacting with such a variety of people on a daily basis. Young people, old people, people in trouble, people not in trouble- you never know what the day is going to bring. I have been very lucky. I worked with tremendous people inside the job and outside of if. I met brilliant people, and met brilliant friends as a result of the job over the last 30 years, and the last 13 years in crime prevention."

Dean's father Eoin was a garda based in the traffic corps in Kells and his grandfather and uncle were also gardai, and Dean himself joined the force in 1991 when he was 22.

His first posting as a student garda was to Blanchardstown and Dean said he loved it there. When he graduated in 1992, he was sent to Store Street where he spent about a year but then looked to get back to Blanchardstown, where he got a lucky break and got moved into the detective office.

"I absolutely loved it. I had an amazing time in Blanchardstown. I loved the busyness of it, the variety of it. It very very busy," recalled Dean who said it was a great learning curve.

At the time there were a lot of travelling gangs operating out of Blanchardstown. "You were always on the look out for them. It was a real hub of activity. Every day you went out as detectives, you were expecting some sort of trouble- robberies, armed robberies, syringe robberies, burglaries, it would be unusual not to come across something back then."

He also worked on many murder investigations during his time there.

In 2001, Dean was promoted to sergeant and was based in Kevin Street for a short period but wanted to get back to Meath. Skerries came up as an option, which at that time was in the Louth Meath Divison, and he moved there for about a year and says he probably would have stayed there but there but he was moving back to Carnaross and there was no direct road between Kells and Skerries.

In 2003, a vacancy came up in Trim and he transferred there, leading the detective unit. Dean recalls that it was a huge change after working in Dublin for so many years where there was no much crime and it was so busy.

"The city and country life are two different jobs. There is no question about that." It wasn't as busy but there was a lot more paperwork involved.

When Meath became its own division, the job of crime prevention officer came up and Dean decided to apply. Starting from scratch in the role, Dean initially did a lot of cold calling and meeting with different groups and getting his name out there.

"Coming from a detective background into it, it worked hand in hand. Because the role is all about trying to prevent crime , I was already coming at it as to how crimes were being committed so you had the idea of what the mindset of the criminal was so it was very easy to explain to people, this is what is going to happen if you don’t do a, b, c or d.

"It was very easy to talk about cases, and explain to them, from interviewing criminals over the years, this is what they are looking for. So the jobs complemented each other. "

Dean came up with the idea of hosting a security exhibition in the Ardboyne Hotel, Navan in 2011, which he said was a phenomenal success and he went on to organise more in Dunboyne, Ashbourne, and another one geared specifically towards busineses in 2015 focus using on topics like GDPR and cyber fraud. He also organised a national crime prevention meeting in Navan that brought officers from across the country together.

In fact, it was from the first security exhibition that the Meath Crime Prevention Facebook page had its origins and was initially set up to promote the event. "I never expected it to be the success that it was. Social Media wasn't huge then. There was only the Garda Facebook page, and mine."

"It just gathered momentum, within a couple of weeks we had 10,000, then 20,000, it started to grow and grow and grow. Now it has a weekly reach of over 300,000"

The chief superintendent at the time saw the potential and the Garda Press Office came on board and worked with them and they got huge engagement from the public.

Dean says is has been hugely beneficial in helping solve crimes and also in returning property to people and they get a huge amount of engagement on the page. He emphasised the importance of getting the information up quickly.

Speaking about the power of social media, he told how going back a few years, there was a group of three men doing the rounds in south Meath and gardai were following them. Dean kept updating the Facebook page with where they were last seen.

Separately, a garda called to the home of an elderly woman who already knew all about it as her son in America has seen the updates on the Facebook page and phoned her to warn her.

"It has helped in solving crimes and getting property back to people. It is extraordinary the amount of property we have got back to people once they are in a position to identify it."

Dean was Meath's hostage negotiator for 10 years from 2006 to 2016 and said it was easily the best course he did "by a country mile" during his time in the job.

"In each county, there was a trained hostage negotiator for kidnappings, extortions, tiger kidnappings,or somebody threatening suicide serious incidents like that where you are trying to get them out safely. I was the first one for Meath. "

"We worked in pairs and then depending on how serious it is, if there are firewarms involved we would get the RSU or ERU involved."

Dean has also been on many committees over the years and says the Age Friendly Committee was one of his favourite committees and he loved being part of it.

Looking to the future, Dean has no intention of being idle and says he will take a few months off and will then intends to move into health and safety training. He is also hoping to have more time to travel and loves skiing and fishing and has even been to Alaska fishing a number of times.