International Women’s Day: Fed rep’s calling to join the police

7 March 2025

Sergeant Tenielle Hardwick is a familiar face to many in Derbyshire Police – but she almost took a completely different career path.

Tenielle wanted to be a nun when she was a teenager and even spent 12 days on work experience at a convent in Stoke on Trent.

However, she also had an interest in policing after she alerted police to the death of an elderly person on her paper round, and it was that career she eventually pursued.

Tenielle said: “When I was at school I went on work experience to be a nun for 12 days.

 

Sergeant Tenielle Hardwick.

 

“My dad used to take me to the convent in Stoke on Trent at 5am and would pick me up at 7pm.

“I did all the all the chores and the prayers and everything. However, I swear like someone in the Navy though, so it wasn’t quite for me.

“But I also wanted to be a police officer. When I was about 12, I delivered newspapers and that's how I came into contact with the police.

Found dead

“I remember putting a paper through an elderly person’s door and thinking he hadn’t taken in his paper from last night.

“I went home, we rang the police and sadly he was found dead.

“I remember the police officer coming out and talking to me and I thought, wow, what a great job this is.”

Tenielle joined Derbyshire Constabulary in 2003 as a response officer at Cotton Lane. She moved St Mary’s Wharf in 2006 and was seconded to the Major Crime Unit from 2007 to 2009.

She then worked in licensing and on the Safer Neighbourhood Team at Derby City Centre before moving to Clay Cross in 2018 where she worked on reactive and the Safer Neighbourhood Team.

Negotiator

Then she went to be a management of sexual or violent offenders’ (MOSOVO) officer in 2020 and she’s now based at Ripley HQ where she is a performance sergeant.

Tenielle is also a trained hostage and crisis negotiator.

“Usually it’s 72 hours you’re on call for,” said Tenielle, a mother of a 17-year-old son, and daughter, 12.

“You can get called out at any time and you have to drop whatever you’re doing.

“I've been called out in the middle of the night, stood on bridges, freezing cold with people who are threatening to jump.

“They actually don’t want to jump, they want to talk.”

Rewarding

She added: “It’s very rewarding.

“People said to me, why don’t you go for it?

“It was always that the children were too young, which is why I waited to get promoted because my kids have always come first.

“But I can talk to everybody and anybody, so I just thought why not?

“The course was the hardest course I’ve done in my life.

“I’ve got another two intense courses coming up in June, to get another string to my bow.”

Representative

Tenielle was speaking about her roles for International Women’s Day (8 March) which celebrates women’s achievements.

They include being a Federation representative. Tenielle has been a rep for nine years and has just been voted in again in the recent Federation elections.

She became a rep after needing the assistance of the Federation herself.

“I was under investigation and it was a really difficult time for me,” she said.

“Nothing ever came of it but I would panic all the time, worry all the time about it.

“The Federation helped me. They were really good with the support they offered me and I thought I'm going to go for this.

“Also, I know a lot of people in the Force, I talk to everybody, from the cleaner to the Chief Constable.

Post-incident procedures

“I'll challenge and I do it in the right way.

“I now mainly do PIPs (post-incident procedures) because I’m just so busy.”

That busyness includes finding the balance between work-life, being a rep, a wife and a mother of two.

“My children were born into the police service, so they know I’m not going to be there all the time,” she said.

“It’s getting that balance right. My husband is also a police officer in Derbyshire on task force.

“The first six or seven years, it felt like we didn't see each other. It was hard, juggling a child and not being able to afford childcare, because it's so expensive, but you find a way.”

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