He's a policeman who goes ‘bollocky' on Papamoa Beach. That's Constable Reece Hood the naturist.

He's also a cop who'll strip off his whole kit and caboodle – stab vest, handcuffs and the works – and pose nude for life art classes. That's Constable Reece Hood the model.

Reece Hood, policeman and life model. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

'This is going to cost me a cake, a big cake.” It's tradition that when an on-duty policeman's photo appears in the newspaper he shouts his colleagues cake.

But when that cop appears naked in the newspaper, wearing only what God delivered him in, that'll cost two cakes. Big ones.

'And it'll also cost me a lot of merciless piss-taking,” says Constable Reece Hood.

But it's ok, because this is not about exhibitionism and nudity. It's about life and death. About prostate cancer.

And the cops who will scoff the cake and mock a mate who's very happy in the buff, are the very same cops who banded together to support and fundraise for Reece Hood when he was told he was dying, when he had just 12 months to live.

'I think I just burst into tears. Not tears for myself. But I was going to lose my wife and I wasn't going to see my kids get married.”

The man who'd rarely been to a doctor was in shock and denial. 'No, that can't be me – that doesn't happen to me.”

He was a cop who had also spent 21 years in the military. He believed himself to be emotionally hardened and physically indestructible.

In 2013 Constable Hood had been suffering a crippling pain in the stomach. 'Like someone had kicked me in the nuts.”

An MRI scan identified prostate cancer and a biopsy revealed stage three cancer. It doesn't get much worse.

'When they operated, they discovered the cancer had engulfed the entire prostate, moved up the seminal vesicle into the base of my spine. It invariably goes to the bones and that's what kills you.”

It was a very rare form of prostate cancer and very aggressive. Stage four, as bad as it gets.

'They said, that's it, there is nothing more that they can do.”

He declined the chemotherapy. 'For personal reasons.”

But he agreed to radiotherapy and he investigated other options. 'A vitamin C regimen.”

Reece took a year's unpaid leave and he and his wife travelled the world for five months.

Then, an inexplicable twist to the story; just as cancer cruelly takes away, at a whim it can also give back. A dying man got progressively better and better. 'And here I am.” He is seven months in remission.

And he wears his scar like a badge of honour. In the middle of the interview the constable springs to his feet and drops his daks. The deep purple scar where the surgeons went to work on a gland in crisis is cutting edge, straight from the base of his penis to his belly button. You can't not look.

'I want to show men it's ok to have scars. It's ok to be happy with the way your body looks.” He's still happy with his honed body even though it conspired with an insidious disease to reject him, to kill him.

'You see woman who've had mastectomies being photographed and they share all their scars. It's an empowering thing and you can immediately empathise. Men don't do that. But I want to help change that.”

And he will use shock tactics to do it. 'Well, people will be surprised. Especially my colleagues.”

Constable Reece Hood is getting his kit off to force conversation about prostate cancer in a month that men should be talking about the state of their prostates.

It's National Prostate Health month.

He's a model at the Tauranga Society of Artists life art classes. 'It's not vanity. Well, I don't think so.” And it doesn't worry him that he's standing starkers, posing, in front of a whole lot of people.

He gives them his ‘David' pose – and the Goliath he vanquished with his slingshot of surgery, radiotherapy, and vitamin C was the cancer.

'They're so focused on drawing form and shadow and muscle groups. It's not about being nude and showing off, it's empowerment.”

But he's a cop. He symbolises authority, integrity, respect, and the law of the land. How can he reconcile that with being au naturel, buck naked on Papamoa Beach or in an art class?

'My answer is my body and my life. Just because I am a cop it doesn't mean I have to toe a certain line and live a certain way of life.”

But wouldn't there be a public perception that he does?

'How does being a naturist and life model compromise my integrity and standing as a policeman?

'I have the very highest integrity. Ask any of my colleagues and they would tell you the same thing.”

What about his superiors?

'They don't know. It doesn't have anything to do with being a police officer. This is me, Reece Hood as a cancer survivor, giving back to the community on something I feel very strongly about.”

And then there's the very likely scenario of someone – a ‘perp' even, that Constable Reece Hood has stopped in the street, or in a car – recognising him as the nude cop in The Weekend Sun.

'Hopefully I can proudly say yes, I am, ask them what they thought about it, and get some discussion on prostate cancer going.”

He is so comfortable with nudity, with his own form, that he would be delighted to have one of the drawings or paintings, scar and all, hanging in his hallway.

'My daughter would be really embarrassed but she would get used to it.”

And his wife simply tells the policeman to follow his instincts. Within reason.

'It should get people talking and if that talk is positive, then great. If it's not positive, then I don't want to hear about it.”

Well, Constable, your campaign has scored already. This reporter had to sheepishly Google ‘prostate'.

After more than 60 years of unheralded and maintenance-free service to this body, I now know precisely its location and function. I am grateful, Constable.