The mother of Andy Hocking has said she is delighted that Falmouth police station's public enquiry office has reopened - and Andy would have been too.
Elizabeth O'Hagan attended the reopening of the Falmouth office by Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez on Friday along with her husband of 37 years Harry.
The official reopening took place on March 10, just two days after the eighth anniversary of PC Hocking's death on March 8, 2015.
The office closed in a year earlier as a response to Government austerity.
Mrs O'Hagan told the Packet: "I think it is great. It should never have closed in the first place. Alison said she would reopen it and she did, she kept her word.
"It's nice to see police in the town, people don't see that as much any more.
"Andy would have hated it when it closed. He would try and help everybody if he could with their problems and if he couldn't he would send them to the station for someone else to help.
"I think he would have been very pleased that it had reopened. He loved helping people. He always said he was a dinosaur because he did things to help people and used to walk the streets. I said to him he didn't just walk the streets, he walked everywhere."
PC Hocking was the beat manager for Arwenack and his whole philosophy was being the human face of the police force and as such was admired by the many people that came into contact with him.
His death at just 52 prompted an outpouring of grief from the community with thousands of people attending a memorial march to Events Square along Andy's usual beat called Walk the beat one last time....
Enquiry offices in Truro, Falmouth, Penzance had a soft opening earlier in the year while newly recruited staff to man them were trained up.
Those 26 newly trained staff are now in place to man the offices full-time.
Ian Woods, police enquiry office supervisor at Falmouth and Penzance said: “Since we reopened police enquiry offices for the public in Falmouth and Penzance our communities have engaged well with us, visiting to report a wide variety of crimes, incidents and general reports.
"Our front offices are safe places for people to come if they need immediate assistance away from dangerous or challenging situations such as domestic abuse.
"We expect the number of people visiting the front offices to report crime will increase as more people learn that we are open, especially during June to September.
"We welcome this renewed opportunity to meet people face to face in our public enquiry front offices.”
Alison Hernandez, who funded the re-openings, said: “Thanks to investment from our residents Devon and Cornwall Police now has record police officer numbers.
"Having accessible police stations close to our communities is the missing part of the jigsaw in providing the neighbourhood model of policing that the Chief Constable and I support.
“Although we experience some of the lowest crime levels in the country, drugs and anti-social behaviour are considerable issues for our communities.
"We want people to feel confident in telling us about the problems and challenges they experience before these issues escalate so preventative action can be taken.
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“Already crimes including non-recent historic offences have been reported at one of our reopened police enquiry desks, demonstrating that some people prefer talking to an officer in confidence and in person.”
In the police enquiry offices which are open to the public in Bude, Falmouth, Penzance and Truro the public can report crime, receive prevention advice and meet officers and staff of many different ranks and roles.
When not dealing with in-person enquiries, the newly recruited police enquiry officers are able to respond to non-emergency contact via online channels, so taking pressure off their colleagues in contact centres and reducing waiting times for the public.
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