A woman who was almost sexually assaulted as a teenager in Roleystone in 2011 and had to drive to Cannington to speak to police afterwards has added her voice to the 24/7 police station debate.
Dedre Scholtz, 20, spoke about her harrowing experience at the rally for a 24/7 police station in Armadale organised by Member for Armadale Tony Buti on Saturday.
She was 15 at the time and was walking home from Roleystone Senior High School in the afternoon when a man started following her.
“Every time I started walking faster he would walk a little faster and eventually he caught up to me and grabbed me from behind and pulled me into the bushes and he tried to assault me,” she said.
“I managed to get away from him and run home.”
She said her dad took her to Armadale police station at 4.15pm on a weekday but it was closed.
“There’s a sign that says ring the doorbell for after hours service and someone will come and help you, we rang the bell and it was dead quiet,” she said.
“We had to get into the car and drive all the way to Cannington station, it was about an hour of just driving before somebody actually helped us.”
Ms Scholtz said she wanted to speak to police in person because she wanted them to walk her through what to do.
“I was really young, I didn’t really know what to do with myself, my dad didn’t know what to do or how to help me either,” she said.
“I just wanted to get it off my chest and tell somebody my story, I needed to get it out so the world knows this had just happened to me and I had no idea how to help myself or what to do about it.”
She said the incident made her realise how important it was to have an accessible police station.
“I’ve got a daughter of my own now and if something like that happened to my daughter I’d want to be able to go to Armadale police station and get assistance straight away,” she said.
“It’s all fine having cops on the road but you do need the police at the station to help other people as well.”
The rally, attended by about 100 people, was a part of Dr Buti’s efforts to turn the Armadale police station into an enhanced 24/7 station like Cannington.
Police Minister Liza Harvey said his actions were a ‘disgraceful act of misleading and scaremongering’ Armadale residents.
She said the government had just spent $7 million for land for a new Armadale justice complex and the station had officers already working out of it 24/7.
“Any Armadale resident in a police emergency just needs to call them and police will come to them,” she said.
Dr Buti said as each day goes by opposition to the idea seemed ‘pathetic’.
“I’m not sure what we’re scaremongering about, we’re saying we want a 24/7 police station open to the public with enhanced services,” he said.
“That’s not scaremongering, that’s just saying we want these services.
“I want to have increased services there, I don’t see how anyone can tell me that if Cannington needs it we don’t need it.”
A WA Police spokesman said it was preferable for victims to have police officers come to them to assist in a timely manner.
He said an attempted sexual assault was a serious criminal offence and would be referred to detectives who also work 24/7.
When asked why 24/7 stations existed the spokesman said they enabled WA Police to fulfil statutory requirements and processes such as offenders reporting on bail and custody management.
