Robert James Fairhurst

Divisions Served: “E,” “G,” “A,” “HQ,” “Depot”

Medals & Honours: Queen’s Silver, Golden, and Diamond Jubilee Medals, Long Service Medal, 2 Certificates of Awards.

Pillar Location: Pillar IX, Row 12, Column C

Story: 

Reg.#19695 S/Sgt. (retired) Robert James (Bob) Fairhurst was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta on January 27th 1937 to Bob & Ida Fairhurst. Our residence was in Redcliff, 3 ½ miles West of Medicine Hat. I attended school in Redcliff up to the ninth grade and then to Medicine Hat High School. I graduated in 1956. I worked at the Redcliff Dominion Glass Factory for a few months after graduating, I was sworn into the RCMP at Lethbridge, Alberta on October 31, 1956 and on the same day travelled to Regina by train from Medicine Hat. I joined 31 other young men from across Canada when “P” Troop was formed on November 12, 1956.

I always wanted to join the RCMP from an early age. My father was a Sgt. in WW11 and a roll model as well as my brother, Reg.#18343 Ronald Edward (Ron) Fairhurst who was already in the RCMP. He joined in 1953 and was stationed at White Rock, BC. The RCMP were a para-military organization and having ‘military’ in my blood, being an Army cadet and a member of the South Alberta Regiment Reserves, it was natural for me to join the RCMP. While I was in training for 6 months, my younger brother Reg.#19981 John Wilfred (Jack) Fairhurst also enlisted in the RCMP and joined me in Regina. Our parents were proud to the point of embarrassment when we came home to visit. Always ‘parading’ their three sons in front of their friends.

My first posting was Revelstoke, BC, which was a five man unit with a Corporal in-charge. The Trans Canada Highway was being built from Golden to Revelstoke so traffic was very light with few travellers passing through. This made our policing responsibilities mainly confined to local residents resulting in very little crime. Probably a good way to start one’s policing career but not a good way to gain experience. Of course that came later.

I met my future wife, Rita Carey, who was a nurse at Revelstoke hospital. Before we got married I was transferred to Fort Smith, NWT and served there for a year. I loved the North, however, due to marriage regulations, in those days, I was transferred to Ottawa right after our wedding in April of 1960. I was posted to “A” Division and became a member of the Governor General’s Troop. Duties consisted of guarding the Parliament Buildings, the Governor General’s residence as well as the Prime Minister’s residence on Sussex Street. My last year in “A” Division was on traffic duties policing the National Parkways in the Ottawa area. While in Ottawa I applied for Field Identification Services and was transferred to ‘HQ’ Ottawa where I spent a year training at the Scenes of Crime Unit which consisted of photography and the science of gathering crime scene evidence i.e. fingerprints, footprints, tool marks, plan preparations, etc. While in Ottawa two of our children, Theresa and Catherine, were born at St. Louis de Montfort Hospital where my wife worked as a nurse.

In 1964 I was transferred to Kamloops, BC to a two man Identification Section. We covered a vast amount of Central British Columbia examining crime scenes. I spent a lot of time travelling, however, the job was very interesting and rewarding, especially when one was responsible for a successful conclusion of criminal cases. I spent six years in Kamloops where I was promoted to Cpl. While in Kamloops two more of our children were born, Brenda and Stephen

In 1970 I was thrilled to be chosen to open the Identification Section in Campbell River, BC, which subsequently developed into a very busy unit covering the Northern part of Vancouver Island and all the Inlets. In seven years the unit grew to four men and I was promoted to Sergeant.

In 1977 I was transferred to the Commissioner’s Secretariat, Management Audit Unit in Ottawa and promoted to S/Sgt. We were a team of approximately 20 members that travelled across Canada to inspect the Divisions and Directorates of the Force to ensure good management and investigative practices were followed and subsequently report to the Commissioner with our findings. My expertise was of course Identification duties so I was responsible in writing up the areas of responsibility that our team members could follow during their interviews with Identification members. The job was not as exciting as Field Identification duties, however, it did result in not having to be called out in the middle of the night to examine a crime scene.

I was involved in many serious criminal investigations throughout my career, however, the two most satisfying and interesting cases are as follows: During my service in Kamloops, I was called upon many times to travel great distances to assist other members in their investigations. One such case involved my brother Ron, who was stationed in Williams Lake, a 180 mile journey from Kamloops. He had recovered a stolen car and apprehended a person nearby but had to connect this person to the vehicle in question. The only way was to find some physical evidence such as fingerprints, so our Section was called to assist. I was the one to reluctantly make the journey even though it was my brother making the request. The car was a dirty sun beaten wreck and the chances of finding evidence was remote at the best, however, we had to give it a try. While dusting this dirty car for fingerprints to no avail I was ready to tell brother Ron the bad news. No evidence! Ready to get out of the car I made a last ditch effort to find something that may link the suspect to the vehicle. Examining the dirty contents of the floor beneath the driver’s seat, I found a ripped out ‘penny’ match. With false bravado, I handed the match to brother Ron and asked him to check if the suspect’s possessions contained a book of penny matches. Ron came back with a grin from ear to ear. He had confronted the suspect with this somewhat ‘flimsy’ evidence. The match book was part of the suspects possessions and the unusual rip, where the match was torn out of the book, was convincing enough for him to confess. He was ‘Out Matched’ by two RCMP brothers.

The second interesting case involved a theft of a small fishing shack several miles West of Campbell River. It was winter and there was lots of snow in the hills. I was called to try and find some form of evidence in this rather bizarre case. Who would steal a whole wooden shack? Again chances of locating anything to connect a suspect to this offence was ‘Nil’ ‘Nada” ‘Zilch’. There were tire tracks of poor quality but not good enough to connect these tracks to any vehicle, however, I took photographs in a show of letting the investigator know I was trying to be serious. About to leave the scene I noticed an indentation in a snow bank. A vehicle had obviously backed into this snow bank. On closer examination I could see the shape of a licence plate and some hard to see figures. I photographed the indentation with oblique lighting and lo and behold a reverse image of licence plate numbers became visible. The number was traced and the culprit was brought to justice.

In November of 1980 I retired from the Force and moved with the family to Kelowna, BC where we now reside. I worked as a Security Officer for Western Star Trucks Manufacturing in Kelowna and was a Realtor for Royal Lepage Real Estate for 6 years and finally retired completely in 2002.

During my service I took the following courses:

– 1963 Motorcycle course at “A” Division, Ottawa.
– 1966 Survey and Plan Preparation Course at Carleton University in Ottawa.
– 1968 Fingerprint Examination Course
– 1972 Police Personnel Management Basic Course in Victoria, BC.
– 1976 Senior Police Administration Course, Ottawa, ON.
– 1977 Technical Report Writing Course, Ottawa, ON
– 1980 Instructional Techniques Course, Canadian Police College, Ottawa.

I view my service in the Force as a wonderful life experience that very few people will ever have in their lives. I was part of a ‘brotherhood’ of like-minded Canadians that under constant pressure were involved in a myriad of exciting situations. Some situations were very rewarding and some extremely sad. Every day on the job was different from the previous day so life was never boring. I met some fantastic people at our postings with some becoming life long friends. Looking back would I do it again? Probably, but it would not be the same with our changing world. It is probably much more complicated to be a policeman during these modern times.