Ken Lay steps down as Victoria's police commissioner | Australia news | The GuardianKen Lay steps down as Victoria's police commissioner | Australia news | The Guardian










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Australian police and policing



Ken Lay steps down as Victoria's police commissioner









Police chief says he is stepping down to support his wife, Chris, who is suffering a serious illness














Victorian police commissioner Ken Lay. Photograph: Joe Castro/AAP Image



Australian Associated Press


Sunday 28 December 2014 19.06 EST







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Victoria police chief commissioner Ken Lay has resigned, citing family reasons. Lay said his wife, Chris, faced an illness that would require extensive treatment.
At a media conference in Melbourne he said the decision to leave had come a little sooner than he had thought it might, but the catalyst was “deeply personal”.
“The time is right for me to return the unconditional support [Chris] has given Victoria police, the Victorian community, and me,” he said.
He said the job required absolute focus for 365 days a year. “I simply cannot invest that energy whilst my family is facing this other challenge.”
Lay said he was proud to have had the opportunity to lead an organisation of which he had been a member for 41 years, calling it “a privilege I have never taken for granted”.
He said he was most proud of the change in public attitudes towards violence against women and children.
“If police are to be leaders in the community, they need to be leaders and exemplars in their own organisation,” he said.
Rosie Batty, who survived domestic violence herself but lost her 11-year-old son Luke, said Lay was an “authentic, good bloke” who provided strong support to her and the fight against family violence.
“He’s a man in a male dominated organisation but he had an acute understanding of family violence,” Batty told Guardian Australia. “A lot of male leaders can talk the talk but they don’t necessarily see it as the gender issue that it is. Ken could do that. We need more strong male leaders like him, who have influence over other men.
“He sent me a text on Christmas day because he knew it would be a tough day for me. He took the time to see me twice since Luke’s death. He genuinely does want to listen and learn and find out how the police can do things better, he didn’t shy away from that.”
Batty said that Lay’s advocacy on the issue needed to be replicated by his replacement. The Victorian government has said a global search, taking up to six months, will take place with Lay officially stepping down at the end of January.
Chris Atmore, senior policy adviser at the Federation of Community Legal Centres, said Lay had made a “very valuable contribution” to the domestic violence debate.
“He had a genuine focus on men taking responsibility for family violence and calling out misogynist attitudes, including from within his force,” she said. “He set such a shining example from the top that we all became more aware of pockets of bad practice lower down the chain, it showed that we are getting there but there is a way to go.
Lay was appointed commissioner in 2011 following the departure of Simon Overland.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, who stood next to Lay as he delivered his resignation at the press conference, paid tribute to the commissioner and said that his work had left the state a safer place.
“Victoria could not have hoped for a better chief commissioner of police than you, Ken,” Andrews told the media conference.
“On behalf of every Victorian, we thank you wholeheartedly.”
However, Labor had criticised Lay’s decision before the state election to delay the release of quarterly crime statistics. Lay said he didn’t want to get caught up in a political fight over crime statistics before the November poll.
When the crime statistics were released in December, they showed Victoria’s overall crime rate rose by 3.3%, with about 22,000 more offences across the state compared with the previous year.
During his time as commissioner, Lay won wide-ranging support for his strong response to domestic violence and for leading national debate on the issue, which he said was a wider cultural problem. 
“I place family violence in a wider culture where vulgar and violent attitudes to women are common,” he said. “These attitudes show that we perceive women differently than men and by differently I mean we perceive them as less valuable. In order to stop a problem we have to tackle the cause.”
Lay had also warned of the need for structural reform of Victorian police, following the release of a landmark report that showed the force was struggling to cope with misdirected resources, industrial restrictions and obsolete technology. He said it would fall further behind without considering radical changes such as volunteer police, bigger stations and major equipment upgrades.



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