Federation Chair: We Need To Know True Picture Of How Many Police Officers Are Assaulted

A BRAND-new APP is being launched allowing police forces to record incidents of assault against officers and staff in a consistent way.

The roll out of this APP is an integral part of the wider Operation Hampshire programme in the National Police Wellbeing Service (NPWS), which is led by Oscar Kilo through the College of Policing.

“What’s really important is getting managers to use this APP,” said Steve Kent, Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation. “They need to use it to report things, use it to report officers being assaulted, rather than relying on officers themselves to do it because that defeats the objective.

“I think this is good. I think this is all positive and it ties in with a positive narrative of getting recognition out there and getting things registered and recorded properly about assaults.”

According to Government statistics, 817 officers were assaulted in South Yorkshire last year. That’s more than 15 every week.

Steve added: “I’m involved in the Oscar Kilo team for the force so I will be linking in with our ACC to make sure that, if we don’t use this, we’ve got a suitable, as-good alternative, which I don’t think we do have.

“Anything that can get out there the truth, because I think the public…. You know, certainly Government and prosecutors don’t realise the true scale of assaults out there for officers. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been assaulted. I’m not saying these people should go to prison, but they’ve pushed or shoved or whatever, and we need to record that.

“Perhaps many officers by the time they’ve got back to the nick think, ‘It was only minor I can’t be bothered to record it’, or, ‘It’s not worth it’. Whereas a quick, two-minute application, bish bash bosh, done.”