“A minimum sentence for those who assault police officers will help deter criminals”

HIGHER sentencing for those who assault police officers is welcome – but it may be more important to look at minimum sentencing if to properly deter those who assault officers, says South Yorkshire Police Federation.

Government statistics show that 30,000 police officers were assaulted on duty in England and Wales in 2018/19.

However, despite the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018, which gives the judicial system an option of a maximum 12-month custodial sentence, just 1,000 of the 12,600 people convicted of assaulting a police officer went to jail last year.

Those that did go to jail received an average sentence of just two months. Home Secretary Priti Patel has now pledged to get tough on the issue.

Steve Kent, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman has said that he welcomes more sentencing powers, but that he would like to see a minimum sentence for any assault involving a police officer.

He said “What we’re finding at the minute is that people aren’t getting the maximum sentence anyway.  So, what we should be really considering is a minimum sentence for any kind of assault that involves an injury to a police officer.

“And, if we had that minimum sentence, and it becomes a properly aggregating factor then we’ll see that the sentences will be dished out for the lower level stuff.

“A maximum sentence will only ever be used for the extreme levels of assaults against police – which I support – but let’s get that base level up first.”

Steve said that there was a recent case in South Yorkshire Police where someone got 44 weeks for badly assaulting female police officers, but that he would like to see that be a minimum of a year.

He added “ If the incident is – and technically speaking – classed as anything but common assault then there should be automatic imprisonment.

“In the common sense world, if someone just pushes a police officer on the arm, we’re not necessarily going to expect them to go to prison for what is still technically assault. But, if officers end up with black eyes, lose teeth, broken noses, cuts, bites, they’re the type of offences then for me they should be ending up in prison as an automatic.”