662 police officers assaulted in South Yorkshire – tough sentencing needed

SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation has praised the Home Secretary’s approach to police assaults, after Priti Patel announced plans to double sentences for those who attack officers.

662 officers were assaulted in South Yorkshire last year. That’s more than 12 every week.

Ms Patel told the Daily Mail in July: “A minority of despicable individuals still seem to think they can treat emergency services workers as punchbags. Now more than ever, those on the front line must be able to do their jobs without fear of harassment or physical attack. This Government is committed to doing just that.

“I am completely unapologetic in my belief that any individual who assaults or attacks the unsung heroes of society belongs behind bars. It’s essential that in these horrific cases, a just punishment is handed down.”

In November 2018 the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act doubled the maximum penalty for common assault from six to 12 months. But the Government will now seek to double this sentence to two years.

Steve Kent, Federation Chair, said: “We’ve had a decade of Home Secretaries who, to be perfectly blunt, couldn’t care less about policing, as shown through their actions and their words. Now that we’ve got a Government and a Home Secretary who do seem to be broadly supportive of policing, it is refreshing to see and obviously I welcome it. But now we just need to get those courts onto our side with it.”

However, he warned that more needs to be done towards the bottom end of the scale: “My argument would be, whether [increased sentences] make any difference because if we’re talking about the offences that are going to get two years, there will be other offences anyway. If you’ve got something that severe where an officer had serious injuries then there’d be other offences that would supersede this legislation.

“So for me I appreciate what they’re doing and I don’t want to seem ungrateful that they’re looking at it because I welcome it and it shines a spotlight on it. But pulling out the sentencing to two years at the top isn’t the issue. You need to push it back up from the bottom. They’re attacking this from the wrong end.”