Sarah Kanowski

ABC Listen.

Podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

When Deborah Richardson was 18 years old, she was living with her parents in the suburbs of Melbourne and working at a call centre job that she absolutely hated.

She thought about the kind of work that her older brother got to do as a police officer and decided to give that a crack.

By the following year, Deborah was accepted into the Victorian Police Academy and graduated in 1984 as one of only a handful of female officers.

One day, Deborah was at work at the Russell Street Police Station in Melbourne CBD when a car bomb exploded outside.

And although she was lucky to avoid serious injury, the experience deeply affected her.

Years later, Deborah and her husband took the child of another police officer into their home.

The boy's name was Yuri.

He was from Ukraine.

His family were survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Back home in Kiev, Yuri grew up to become a police officer himself.

And it was a project that Deb set up to support Yuri after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which ended up helping Deb in a way she could never have anticipated.

Hi, Deborah.

Hello, Sarah.

You signed up for Victoria Police when you were just 18.

What was life like at the academy?

And how did the sergeants in charge of training speak to new recruits like you?

And how did you handle that?

I mean, was that something you were familiar with, had experienced in your life before?