Federation Chair calls for zero-tolerance approach to those assaulting officers

PEOPLE are frustrated by COVID and are lashing out at police officers, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Chairman Steve Kent thinks it may be one of the factors behind a worrying number of assaults on officers being carried out over the past few months.

And now he’s calling for a zero-tolerance stance to be taken against would-be assailants.

More than 30,000 officers were assaulted in England and Wales over 2019/20; 662 of those were carried out on officers in South Yorkshire leaving 257 of them with injuries of one kind or another.

Nationally assaults cause over 70,000 sick days to be taken by officers to recuperate, dragging them away from their vital frontline duties.

A lack of respect for officers, COVID frustrations, no proper deterrent and better recording of assaults in the first place are all behind the stats, Steve said.

“It’s a combination of all these factors,” he said.

“I do think officers are more willing to report assaults, but I think we’ve seen a rise in assaults since COVID because aspects of society are frustrated and taking it out on policing.

“I’m concerned that’s going to get worse as we enter the second national lockdown period.”

The backlog in court cases isn’t helping the situation and has seen some inconsistent sentencing when police assailants are brought in front of the judge, Steve said.

“Because of COVID, the courts are all over the place. There are backlogs, there’s seemingly an atmosphere amongst the courts of just rushing through cases and knocking them to one side and prioritising this, that and the other, and so therefore, there can’t be that consistency of sentencing coming out.

“People are frustrated, and people are losing respect because there’s no deterrent [to the assault]. But that deterrent hasn’t had a chance to take hold yet because the courts system is under increased strain.”

That strain often means ‘lesser’ cases or mitigating factors such as officers being assaulted not being considered when they might have been before.

“Officers have had people who they’ve arrested for numerous offences of which one of which was assaulting a PC, and the lesser offences have been closed off and not dealt with, and they’ve just focused on the serious offences,” Steve said.

“Whilst there’s an understanding why that happens because of the demand, it doesn’t make it acceptable. They actually need to be dealt with at the most severe end, and that’s it.”

Things were better at the height of the first lockdown with robust sentences handed down to people who spat at or coughed at officers, but that now all seems to be in the rearview mirror Steve said.

He now wants to see a zero-tolerance approach to assaults on police officers and other emergency service workers as he fears assaults are only going to rise in lockdown two.

“There needs to be guidelines going out to courts to say, ‘no, we have a zero-tolerance stance on assaults on police and emergency services staff. You will have to deal with them. You don’t put them in the pecking order of minor, miscellaneous offences’.

“Until then we’re going to continue to see a rise, and I am concerned it is going to rise with a change in public patience about COVID.

“It shouldn’t be a flavour of the month thing. It should be a system-wide minimum standard, a zero-tolerance stance. Until that comes in and people are sentenced and put away, I can’t see an end in sight for this,” he added.

“Our officers are still going to be putting themselves at risk out there for a public, some of whom just don’t think twice about assaulting them.”