South Yorkshire Officers Will Have Proper Public Order Kit

SOUTH Yorkshire Police officers will be given all the kit they need to deal with public order offences over the summer, the Federation has said.

Officers across the country have been at the sharp end of several protests up and down the country from all sides of the political debate.

Criticism has been levelled at some forces for not giving officers the correct protective kit to effectively deal with the unrest putting them at risk of injury.

However, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman is confident his members will not be put in that situation.

He has also called for a ban on all protests until the pandemic is over to protect officers from contracting COVID-19.

Steve explained; “I’m reassured by conversations I’ve had with the chief that our force will take quite a hard stance on any kind of disorder early on.

“There has been some criticism from our Met colleagues that their force’s tactics weren’t robust enough from the outset.

“I’ve been reassured that ours would be and that our officers would be in full protective gear when required.”

Thankfully protests and marches in South Yorkshire have so far passed off mostly peacefully, Steve added.

He said: “There was a protest in Sheffield which a large number of people attended, but credit to the people of South Yorkshire, it was peaceful.

“There was a lot of social distancing, and the relations with the police were absolutely great. So I’m hoping we don’t have those problems. But our chief has made it quite clear that he wouldn’t be making the same mistakes that some of the chiefs may have made in terms of applying too much of a soft approach to it.

“We would have to deal with this robustly regardless of which faction was being disorderly. A consistent approach is what I’m looking for.

“We were pleased with our chief’s stance on this – we are the police, and this is what we’re here to do. We’ve got to be robust in the way that we deal with any kind of disorder.”

The PFEW has called for a blanket ban on protests during the pandemic, which Steve agrees with.

He said: “They shouldn’t be happening during the pandemic, full stop.

“I don’t think in reality that is enforceable for us though.”