Nick Shultz

Nicholas Schultz, more known as Nick, first appeared in season 1 episode 1, A Woman's Place.

Early Life and Background
Nick Schultz is the son of Klaus and Elizabeth Schultz. Klaus served in World War II. Nick grew up in Sydney before moving to Victoria before the series started. He married Jennifer Schultz and had a daughter named Zoe Schultz also before the series began. Zoe and Jennifer were killed when a drunk driver collided with their car. The killing of Zoe and Jennifer is what motivated Nick to join the traffic division of Victoria Police, hoping to prevent this sort of tragedy from happening more often and others having to go through the same grief that he went through.

Season 1
Nick and P.J Hasham are the first characters seen in the pilot as they are performing random breath tests on drivers coming into Mount Thomas. It is revealed that Nick is the only police officer that is apart of the Mount Thomas Traffic Division but he often helps out his fellow officers with other police matters. Throughout the first season, it is stated the Nick volunteers to teach basketball to kids at the local gym. He has clashed with a fellow officers wife, Roz Patterson over some traffic fines as she was caught driving 19 km/h above the speed limit, which caused her to lose her license. Roz and her husband Wayne Patterson, Nick's colleague pleaded for Nick to drop the fines but Nick refused and later confessed that his wife, Jennifer and their daughter, Zoe had been killed by a drunk driver.

Season 2
During this season, Nick has several clashes with Wayne. The first one being during a traffic blitz in Mount Thomas while Wayne the passenger of a Traffic Operations Group officer during a pursuit which was not terminated despite the officer being ordered to do so and as a result, Billy Peters, a friend of Nick's was killed in a high-speed accident. The Mount Thomas Traffic Division is closed down and Nick moves into the police residence and becomes the watch-house keeper. The police had an unwritten rule that the watch-house keepers should be married so that the officer's wife could also work at the station without being paid, where they would clean the cells and the office as well as providing meals for those in the lock-up. After receiving advice from Tom Croydon, Nick enlisted the help of the Police Association, the police union, in order to get the job, forcing an unhappy district Inspector Ted Faulkner into giving him the job so it would not look like Nick was being discriminated against for being single or not having a wife. This caused a minor conflict with Wayne who had been the watch-house keeper until his marriage to Roz ended. Wayne had moved into the traffic division with Nick before being moved to general duties when the traffic division was closed, Wayne accused Nick of looking out for himself and forgetting about his mate. Nick began a relationship with Sasha Peters (Billy's widow), this relationship only lasted a few months. He conducted an intervention on Tom's younger daughter, Susan, who had become mixed up in a cult, revealing to her that he knew what cults were like as his late wife had been taken in by a cult during a rocky point in their marriage.

Season 3
Nick is accused of murder after the death of a suspected child killer whilst in custody. His colleagues are suspicious because of his particular hatred of that type of criminal; Nick takes child homicide cases personally as they bring back painful memories of his daughter, Zoe. When Wayne Patterson dies after being run over by a car outside the police station, Nick is furious because Wayne's parents refuse to let the Blue Heelers (the police officers/Wayne's colleagues) other than Tom Croydon, to attend the funeral. He took his anger out on Roz when she arrives in Mount Thomas to inform them of the Pattersons' wishes. Despite the Pattersons' wishes, Nick and the others are able to pay tribute in their own way, arriving at the church in time to perform a guard of honour as Wayne's coffin is carried to the hearse. Nick later finds some solace in his friendship with Doctor Zoe Hamilton who works at Mount Thomas Hospital.

Season 4
Nick tries to save two young girls from drowning in a flood, along with Adam Cooper's help. Nick instructs Adam to go and radio in to get help but when Adam ran back to the car, the road the car was on had been washed away with another young girl inside of it. While Adam tries to get to the girl who is in the car, Nick thinks Adam has abandoned him. Later in the season, Nick and his colleagues are suspicious of Adam's new wife, Stacey, and treat her with some distrust, though Nick later offers Stacey comfort after Adam is shot. Later on, it is discovered that Adam's shooting was part of a plan created by Stacey to claim his life insurance and move away with the real father of the child she had previously miscarried with.

Season 5
A review team arrives in Mount Thomas to evaluate the police station and the officers try desperately to appear busy to prevent the station from being downgraded. Nick, however, has been partnered with local reporter Tony Timms and Nick's attempts to bore the journalist almost causes the officers plan to backfire and Nick creates a missing person to make up for it. When the station is upgraded, Nick has hopes of being promoted to Sergeant but much to his dismay Inspector Falcon-Price chooses to appoint P.J as Acting Sergeant instead. After P.J found himself incapable of staying out of CI affairs, he self-demoted himself, Nick was named Acting Sergeant in P.Js place. Nick begins a relationship with Zoe. He proposes to her early in the season but things are complicated when they become suspects in the Murder of Zoe's ex-boyfriend. As the season continues on, he becomes frustrated that Tom isn't letting him do his job as a sergeant and considers putting in for a transfer to another station. He is given some advice from PJ however he reconsiders the transfer. Late in the year he proposes to Zoe again, this time he is successful and she says yes. The two get married at the Mount Thomas park and the couple leave Mount Thomas after the wedding and head to Melbourne, where Nick has been posted to the police station at Footscray.

Season 11
After six years in Melbourne, Nick returns to Mount Thomas as a Detective Sergeant working with the Homicide Squad to investigate the deadly explosion at the Mount Thomas Police Station. While he is there, he is also called in to investigate several suspicious deaths which appear to be related. After the investigations are completed, Nick returns to Melbourne.

Season 12
Nick returns to Mount Thomas once again to investigate a suspicious death where the chief suspect is his former boss, Tom Croydon. After Tom is cleared, Nick leaves Mount Thomas for the last time and returns to Melbourne permanently.