RETIRED police officer David Parkinson believes major changes need to be made to the way rural crime was investigated to combat increasing stock thefts in WA.
Mr Parkinson, who was a policeman for 33 years, has followed the Smith and Roach cases for a number of years and said a number of changes needed to be made at a higher level to ensure pastoralists cattle weren't stolen.
He said he had been to Marymia and Lake Wells stations in September and said it was obvious cattle had been stolen.
"I was at the Smith's station in September and there was no sign of any carcases or dead bodies anywhere," Mr Parkinson said.
"With the Roach case, I have been there and I have spoken to the police and they said they know the cattle have been stolen but believe they can't do anything."
Mr Parkinson said closing down the Rural Crime Squad had a major impact on the pastoral industry.
"The Rural Crime Squad had an intelligence database, they had a rapport with a lot of the station owners and they had a fair clue as to what was going on," he said.
"And with the Stock Squad being dissolved some of that responsibility has gone to the Livestock Compliance Unit (LCU) which comes under the Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA) and WA Police rely on district police to investigate and that won't happen."
Mr Parkinson said the biggest issue was usually police officers based in regional areas had no expertise in stock thefts and didn't know where to start while the LCU were taking the wrong approach.
"They don't teach brands, tags or stock movement at the police academy," he said
"The LCU is basically just hanging around the big saleyards like Muchea and Katanning.
"But no thief is going to put a truckload of stolen cattle through those yards.
"If a thief has mustered a property and put his National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) tag and his earmark on, that's all the LCU and the brands people are interested in."
He said it was unlikely police would get training in stock thefts at the police academy given the Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan had 'handballed' the responsibility to DAFWA.
"The fact is that you have two different agencies at logger heads with each other and they haven't sat down and worked out a strategic plan," he said.
"District superintendents, which I was, won't send an officer on a 600km round trip to a station to investigate whether a pastoralist may have had his cattle stolen."
Mr Parkinson said some of the investigations from police he knows of have been atrocious.
"The police are not catching people because they don't have the time, the money, the will or the expertise," he said.
"They are not taught about a Brahman or a Droughtmaster, they are more worried about the social issues in town."
Mr Parkinson said the Pastoral Lands Board (PLB) needed to make it compulsory for every pastoralist to notify their neighbours of a muster.
