Prosecutor scores promotion as he celebrates 50 years service with WA Police Force

Racking up 50 years’ service on the police force is no regular feat, but for newly promoted Sgt Karl Rep, it is something he was determined to achieve after a near-fatal car crash caused a speed bump in his career.

Sgt Rep said he was none the wiser of what waited behind the doors for him when he stepped into court three at Kalgoorlie Courthouse on Friday, something he did almost daily as a prosecutor.

There inside the courtroom were dozens of fellow police officers, lawyers, magistrates and other friends who clapped and cheered in celebration of his 50-year achievement and his well-deserved promotion to sergeant.

Stepping into the dock inside the court room — his first time ever, he assured the Kalgoorlie Miner — Sgt Rep was close to tears as people shared their favourite memories and presented him with framed photos and medals.

While he has spent only about two years prosecuting in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Sgt Rep has made his mark among the local team, as well as many other teams from Bunbury, Mandurah and Waroona throughout his career.

Sgt Darren Wood told the Kalgoorlie Miner achieving 50 years service in the police force was an “incredibly rare achievement”.

“He’s obviously joined as a young man, and he’s carried on. And even though he could probably have retired a long time ago, he is that passionate about what he does and enjoys what he’s doing that much that it’s given him the enthusiasm to keep going,” he said.

“It is something I probably won’t see again of anyone else, and something that even in our agency is extremely rare.

“It has been an immense pleasure to work with him.”

Being a police officer is all Sgt Rep ever wanted in life and despite achieving his personal goal of 50 years service, as well as long-awaited promotion, he said he had no plans of stopping.

“I was always telling the guys that this (50 years) was my personal achievement that I wanted for myself, because there have been issues, ups and downs” he said.

“But I’ve always been proud to be a police officer, and I’ll be proud to the day I die.

“It’s something I always wanted to do and I’m fortunate I’ve been able to do it, and am still doing it.

“I’ve got to be honest, I’m obviously at the end of my career, or the back end of it.

“But while the brain is working, I’ll keep working.”

Two days before Christmas in 1995, Sgt Rep — who at the time was an acting sergeant awaiting an interview for his potential promotion to sergeant — was T-boned by a car while riding his motorbike.

The impact of the crash, he said, “virtually tore his leg off”.

“When I joined the police force, sergeant was the minimum rank I wanted to get to,” he said.

“We all aspire to get to commissioned officer. But when I had my crash, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“I was happy to survive the crash ... it could have been worse ... and I’m thankful I am here to talk about it.

“But it changed a lot of things for me because I knew my career wasn’t going to go the way it was going.

“And for as long as I could remember it was all I ever wanted to do in life.”

Almost 30 years later, Sgt Rep says the promotion will change little for him, other than allowing him to work in more offices, but he was proud to finally have it.

“For a while I thought I’d be the longest-serving senior conny (constable),” he said.

“I might still be, because I did that for over 30 years.”

And while the crash is the only thing he wishes he could have changed in his life, it did lead him to joining the intelligence unit which saw him help to identify the culprit in the cold-case murder of Hilda Fry.

His work on the case saw him received a commendation in 2000.

While he has been in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Sgt Wood said Sgt Rep was put in charge of prosecuting the more difficult or high-profile trials that come up, including the indecent assault trial of a man who was ultimately found guilty of grabbing the buttock of former Kalgoorlie Miner deputy editor Amber Lilley at a networking event during the 2022 Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum.

Sgt Rep said that case, as well as another indecent assault trial which took place over multiple days and also ended in a conviction, were some of his highlights from his time in Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

“Those cases can be pretty tricky to get a conviction, so I was really happy to see that,” he said.

As one could expect, being a police officer in 2024 is quite different to what it was in 1977 when Sgt Rep graduated.

“Back in the late 70s it was a bit like Fort Bronx,” he said.

“You worked by yourself, so you had to be good with the mouth because we certainly weren’t kitted up the way everyone’s kitted up these days ... and so you had to rely on your mouth a lot to talk your way out of situations,” he said.

Sgt Rep said the “tragedy and mayhem” he witnessed on some days would always stick with him.

Particularly during his time in Waroona — where he also served as shire president for a time — Sgt Rep said he saw many terrible fatal car crashes as the Old Coast Road was only single-carriageway.

With two young children of his own at the time, Sgt Rep said it was seeing children involved in horrible accidents or fatalities that affected him the most.

“You just learn to compartmentalise it,” he said.

“Tears always come, but they come when you get home.

“You have a job to do, so you need to be professional and get the job done.

“But you never forget it.”

With the promotion comes a change of scenery for Sgt Rep, with his next stop after Kalgoorlie-Boulder being Carnarvon.