The ACT’s police chief, Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan, has announced his retirement after four years in the job.

Australian Federal Police Association President, Alex Caruana, said that DC Gaughan had had a distinguished 40-year policing career and that his legacy would be felt within ACT Policing, the AFP and the ACT community for years to come.

“DC Gaughan has held the position of ACT CPO for four years, longer than his predecessors; from an organisational point of view, that stability has been overwhelmingly positive and beneficial for ACT Policing and Canberra,” says Caruana.

Inspired by some of his friends’ dads who were cops, Gaughan joined the Australian Federal Police just after high school, which saw him move from Sydney to Canberra to work for ACT Policing.

He’s been in Canberra since, working in a variety of ACT Policing areas such as the diplomatic protection unit, the accident investigation squad, the criminal investigations branch, and the sexual assault and child abuse team.

He did that for about 16 years and then hit a crossroads with his career.

“I wasn’t feeling as if I was progressing and I needed a different challenge so I went and [worked for the Australian Taxation Office] for a few years and learnt some really good skills,” says Neil, who worked in fraud control planning.

He says it was heavily risk-management based, which put him in a position where he could work in leadership roles when he returned to the AFP.

He returned to the AFP in early 2003, and since then worked in portfolios such as protection, high-tech crime, counter terrorism and organised crime, before being promoted deputy commissioner in April 2018 where he ran national operations for the AFP.

Police chief with a sharp focus and a sense of fun