Martin Greenlees

Martin was born in Ayrshire but has lived in Dumfries and Galloway for a number of decades. Having started his working career within the retail sector Martin joined Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary in January 1992 and spent 27 years in various roles and specialisms. During his police career he worked in various areas covering Community Safety, Fraud and Financial Investigation, Youth Justice, Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit and Human Trafficking. As well as his operational duties Martin was also a member of the Police Search Team, he held roles as a Wildlife Liaison Officer and an Officer Safety Instructor. As a sports enthusiast Martin enjoys all sports and has a background in martial arts where he previously competed internationally, football and basketball, although his current hobbies are a little more relaxed playing the occasional round of golf and walking his dog Molly. Martin also enjoys writing poetry and is a keen songwriter who has collaborated with local artists for a number of years. Martin retired from the Police Service of Scotland in April 2019. Reflecting on his experiences and life long passion for education, he embarked on the next step of his career developing an idea about a series of books for young reader that explain what the Police does and how they can help everyone. “I wrote the first draft of Community Cop Colin -- Keeping Safe' almost 20 years ago when I was working in community policing. Through my engagement with schools at that time, I quickly realised that telling young children that a stranger is a person you should not speak to, was sound advice but not always best practice because they might be afraid to speak to their local police officer. This inspired me to develop a series of talks to engage children differently by putting more emphasis on the importance of uniform, a visual guide of who they should seek out when their parents and guardians are not around to help. I hope my first book 'Keeping Safe' helps explain the difference to young readers and assists parents and teachers to bring across a positive message about safety".