Top cop Catherine is happy as a role model

ROLE model . . . Supt Catherine Hankinson

OLDHAM’S highest ranking female police officer has spoken of how women can bring up a family while holding down a senior job.

Talking to mark yesterday’s International Women’s Day, Supt Catherine Hankinson said she was proud to have worked her way towards the top of the force.

While acknowledging that many women may choose to concentrate on bringing up children, she is happy to be seen as a positive role model for those wanting to achieve a work/life balance.

The mother-of-two has served for more than 15 years, joining the police because of “not wanting to do a standard nine-to-five job and also having a really strong sense of right and wrong and a sense of justice and injustice.”

After a criminology degree in Hull — she has since completed a Master’s in criminal justice — Supt Hankinson joined what was then known as the Police Accelerated Promotion Scheme for Graduates designed to help recruits with potential soar through the ranks.

Now superintendent of operations in Oldham, her career started in Wigan as a PC before serving as a sergeant in North Manchester and then an inspector in Salford within five years.

She was a chief inspector within nine years and has been a superintendent for four years.

Married to Supt Chris Hankinson, of Rochdale police, the couple have two children, Harriet (five) and William (nine months), and live in Ripponden.

Supt Hankinson said: “From my experience a lot of younger female police officers believe that when they go off to have children it’s almost impossible to come back full time and continue with your career.

“One of my main roles at the force is to try to be a positive role model.

“It can be done. We don’t have family who pick up and drop off the kids, we do it between us.

“One of the things that puts people off being a senior officer is the long hours culture and thinking that with two children you can’t do that, so it’s being able to provide that work/life balance.

“People struggle to marry the two and think a career is not for them.

“It’s hectic but our house probably runs like a boot camp, it’s planned with military precision. It works because it has to.”

Oldham has previously had a woman police commander in Caroline Ball, and Supt Hankinson says women are now represented much more in the force.

She added: “When you walk around the police station now you see a mix of police officers, men and women. When I started 15 years ago women were definitely in the minority.

“You would be on a shift to make sure there was someone there to search a female. Now it’s much more of a balance and there are a lot more women with senior rank.

“But there could be more and I do think that a lot of it is women having the belief in themselves that they can manage. They are a valuable resource. You need a mix of skills that men and women bring.”

She says there are lots of opportunities and support for women to get to the top as well as support with their care commitments .

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8, but events occur across the globe throughout the month to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Supt Hankinson praised the initiative, adding: “It should be seen as a positive thing. We want women contributing in the work place. I think it brings to the fore different careers that women might not have thought about before and that has a positive impact on our recruitment.”