A SENIOR Garda officer, who has done every job in the force from facing down drug lords with a gun on her hip to standing guard at Dáil Éireann for hours on end, says her most satisfying moments have not been in solving crime but in helping prevent it.
Sergeant Ber Leetch, Crime Prevention Officer at Henry Street Garda Station, told the Limerick Post that “all I ever wanted to do, even as a little girl, was to work as a member of An Gárda Síochána”.
After more than 35 years with the force, Ber is stepping down this week to retirement – and with it a complete change of pace, working part time in a Limerick pharmacy.
Joining the force in 1989, Ber was one of the first of a new batch of recruits who underwent two years full training both in Templemore and on the job – rather than the six months previously given to new recruits.
“I was in Pearse Street in Dublin for three years after that and I loved being on the beat there. We covered places like Grafton Street and Trinity and the city centre – it was all about visibility back then, and I loved being out meeting people”.
Ber jokes that she has been in the job so long that “we wore skirts back then. You had to chase criminals, climb over obstacles, fall down and get up again – all in a skirt. And they were cold.”
She came to Limerick as a uniform member in 1995 and was stationed in Mayorstone, before progressing to the rank of detective and then to the drug squad in Henry Street.
She recalls that her years in the drug squad coincided with a terrible time in the city’s history, when drugs and feuds over territory were costing lives and spreading misery.
“Every time you turned on the news, we were in it. It was murder after murder. We were exhausted coming on duty. Members who came in from other places couldn’t believe the level of violence and criminality that we had on a daily basis,” the Henry Street veteran remembers.
“We could have worked around the clock. It was a very difficult time but there were good leaders (in the force) and thankfully it’s behind us now.”
Ber remembers too one of the darkest hours in the force’s history in Limerick.
“I was on duty the day that Detective Gerry McCabe was shot. It was a terrible time. You’re aware you risk injury on the job – it’s happened to me a number of times – but that a member would be shot and killed, we couldn’t comprehend it that day,” she shares.
Ber says her worst moments were “anything to do with children and domestic violence”.
“There was very little supportive legislation back in the day and you would arrive to find a woman bleeding and beaten and the man sitting on the settee, literally smirking, as if to say, ‘what are you going to do about it?’ That’s changed now I’m glad to say.”
In her next incarnation, Ber became Sergeant in Mayorstone, spending 15 years there before being appointed Crime Prevention Officer attached to Henry Street.
Helping people in trouble is what has given the senior officer the most job satisfaction and, she says, her last seven years in the role have been enormously rewarding.
“I really do feel I have made a difference in the crime prevention position. Raising awareness and helping stop crime is a really satisfying way to make a contribution and a lot of the time, it’s helping really vulnerable people. I’ve dealt with some very fine people and I’ve loved every minute of being in this job,” she says.
The Cork woman says she has been very happy to make Limerick her adopted home.
And after more than three decades in the force, she concludes with: “I’m very proud to say I was a member of An Gárda Síochána, and I’m very happy that I stayed in Limerick. I’m very proud of Limerick”.
