Officers are feeling angry and frustrated with lack of MP support over protests

SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation says police officers across the country are angry, frustrated and ‘sick to death’ of not getting the support they need from The Government and politicians over recent ‘kill the bill’ protests.

Policing has dominated the front pages recently, with everyone seemingly having an opinion on how officers dealt with the Sarah Everard vigil and the ongoing unrest and protests in Bristol.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said officers were being unfairly criticised in the media and had been ‘hung out to dry’ by the Home Secretary and other senior politicians.

“After the issues in London and Bristol, I haven’t seen this much anger from our officers, from speaking to them and receiving comms, since the Winsor pay and Governmental pension reforms,” he said.

“The anger is unreal – they are absolutely sick to death of politicians not supporting us, rushing to make quick judgements.

“We had senior politicians like Sir Keir Starmer, a qualified QC, who should know better than draw quick assumptions.

“The Home Secretary left us out to dry. Everybody seemed to let us out to dry until the true facts started coming out, and then obviously there’s no counter-balance reporting about those true facts apart from certain avenues in the media.”

The only positive to take from the past few weeks, Steve added, is the fact that the public still seem to back rank and file for officers for how they are trying to deal with protests which in Bristol, in particular, have descended into violence.

“If it wasn’t for us as a Federation sticking up for our officers, I think they would be feeling isolated at the minute,” Steve said.

“There just doesn’t seem to be any support out there from the media. But the counter-balance to all of this is that the public interactions that I’ve had have been overwhelmingly supportive, which is not always the case.

“I think officers need to take heart in the fact that the public have complete sympathy for them at the moment with the impossible situation they find themselves in.”

Reports in national newspapers suggested that Avon and Somerset police “exaggerated” the level of assaults and injuries officers had to endure. But that overlooks the facts behind the headlines, Steve said.

“There were reports that the police have backtracked on [saying officers received] broken bones and basically almost trying to make out the police have been exaggerating it.

“But they’ve not recognised the fact that 40 officers were injured and not 20. An outrageously suggestive article in The Guardian almost said that police officers are just trying to gain sympathy.

“So we’re still getting it in some portions of the media, unfortunately. The public were horrified and outraged about Bristol, and I don’t think the public going to tolerate it if it starts happening up and down the country, which we think it probably will.”

Protesting the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill, which aims to crack down on protests, and not doing so peacefully, means those taking to the streets are just proving the Government’s point anyway, Steve argues.

“They’re actually protesting and behaving in a way that the bill is trying to address, so it’s an own-goal for the protestors,” he said.

“We haven’t asked for this bill, but because it covers a lot of police issues, perhaps they think it’s one we brought forward.

“But do the public support the new powers to stop people glue-ing themselves to railings and blocking hospital entrances? I would suggest they probably do, so it’s all a misconception.”