Tributes flow for long serving Gympie police officer Vic Tipman

Tributes have flown for long-serving police officer Vic Tipman, as his family, friends and colleagues remember a brave and devoted man with a great sense of humour.

Long serving police officer Victor Arnold Tipman has been remembered as trustworthy, honest, and meticulous in his investigations by his close family and friends. Picture: Supplied.

Tributes have flown for long-serving regional Qld police officer Vic Tipman following his sudden death at the age of 71 in early January, as his family, friends and colleagues remember his humour, life of service and love of pranks.

Gathering around the lounge room of their Gympie home, Vic’s wife Diane Tipman and her two youngest children, Ariana Morgan and Ben Tipman, recall moments and memories of their father, Victor Arnold Tipman.

Mr Tipman was “trustworthy, extremely loyal, very honest, and meticulous in all his investigations”, and he “gave his life to the police force and treated the community like his family”.

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Long serving police officer Victor Arnold Tipman has been remembered as trustworthy, honest, and meticulous in his investigations by his close family and friends. Picture: Supplied.

“How can you put it into words, a lifetime of being a mate and a husband,” Mrs Tipman said.

“We met when we were 13 - we were kids on a school bus, we were mates, we sat together, we did everything together.”

Graduating at the top of his grade, Mr Tipman decided to join the police force as soon as he finished school despite getting accepted to study veterinary science.

His friendship with his 13-year-old bus mate blossomed into romance and they married when they were 19.

Six weeks after their marriage they moved to Mr Tipman’s first posting in St George.

By the end of his time in that community, Vic had become a detective and moved on to postings in Roma, Toowoomba, Brisbane and finally Gympie.

Long serving police officer Victor Arnold Tipman has been remembered as trustworthy, honest, and meticulous in his investigations by his close family and friends. Picture: Supplied.

He started as a police recruit during the confrontations with demonstrators of the 1971 Springbok rugby tour, worked on the 1973 firebombing of the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub and went on to investigate numerous murders, fatal road accidents, domestic violence, juvenile crime and sieges.

In Toowoomba he set up the first Juvenile Aid Bureau in Queensland and was a known advocate for equality and access to opportunities within the police force regardless of gender, his family said.

He was remembered for having a handkerchief in either pocket, one for himself, and the other, a clean one, was if his client needed something to wipe their eyes on, they said.

Long serving police officer Victor Arnold Tipman has been remembered as trustworthy, honest, and meticulous in his investigations by his close family and friends. Picture: Supplied.

He retired in 2012, after 42 years in the force and the first few years of his retirement was a “transition,” his second daughter Ms Morgan said.

He found his feet first by helping build pools at Poolscene Gympie, owned by his eldest daughter Melissa Morley.

He then found his nooks with routine 5pm cheese and beer with his little pug dog Zoe and neighbours in the backyard shed, or out at the Gympie Clay Target Club, or volunteering for Lions, RSL, as a fixture at the Gympie Muster, or at the post office – sending and receiving his restored kerosene lamps, a hobby he loved.

Vic’s regular post office visits showed off his larrikin spirit, with pranks played between the workers and him, and them getting him back by giving him a package full of confetti or grabbing his hand when he would check his post office box, Ms Morgan said.

Long serving police officer Victor Arnold Tipman has been remembered as trustworthy, honest, and meticulous in his investigations by his close family and friends. Picture: Supplied.

He also had a shine for explosives and Ms Morgan said there was a story of when Vic was a teenager and tried to help clear a large gum tree from his dad’s property and left a crater and extensive damage to a farmhouse and car.

When Mrs Tipman heard an explosion at the 2024 New Year’s Eve, she immediately called her husband and gave him a talking to.

Surprisingly, he was not responsible for the explosion, but sadly, it would be the last one she could try to pin on him.

With his loved dog Zoe sitting on his lap, watching the cricket match between the Hurricanes and Renegades on January 4, and with his “mate and wife” beside him, Mr Tipman suffered a suspected heart attack and died later that evening.

His death was both unexpected and sudden, and while the family feels both “robbed and cheated” of their time with him, their memories filled his living room: Christmases together, Vic’s feats of daring physicality, jumping on 40-tonne drums, breaking his arm in an arm wrestle, or doing the “goanna pull” tug-of-war with both contestants in a plank, with the winner needing to drag the opponent over the line with the belt.

Long serving police officer Victor Arnold Tipman has been remembered as trustworthy, honest, and meticulous in his investigations by his close family and friends. Picture: Supplied.

Former workmate and friend Ann Lewis, who once served as Assistant Police Commissioner in Qld, remembered his work ethic, his meticulous approach to investigations and the importance of working with the community and being respected by them.

“He knew that as police we would be judged on the quality of our work,” she said.

Wide Bay Federal MP Llew O’Brien, a former police officer, remembered Vic as an officer who went the “extra mile to care for a victim of crime or someone in need of help”.

“He was a role model to young police like me when I first landed at the Gympie station,” Mr O’Brien said.

“Vic gave so much to the local community.”

Mr Tipman’s funeral will be held at 11am on Friday, January 19, 2024 at St Patrick’s Church.