Police assaults: Worrying rise in attacks on Essex officers

RoystonUncategorized

ASSAULTS against police officers at Essex have nearly doubled in the space of a year, new figures have shown.

As many as 638 officers at the force were hit, kicked, spat at or otherwise attacked on duty in the financial year ending in March, compared with 332 the previous year. Mark Smith, chairman of Essex Police Federation, said the figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, were worrying.

He said: “Even a minor assault can affect you. A police officer is exactly the same as anyone else – as any member of the public. It affects them in exactly the same way, be it mentally, emotionally, financially, in their relationships with others. It is a very difficult thing to deal with. With officers being single crewed, more often than not that can play on the officer’s mind – they will be thinking, how far away is back up?”

Mr Smith added: “We have been pushing for officers to make sure they record assaults so we can understand why they are happening. It is a worrying thing. It is a sorry state of affairs that the world is this way – that people out there are willing to fight and hurt police officers.”

Nationally, assaults are climbing too: There were 20,249 assaults on police officers between April 2013 and March. That is 579 more assaults than in the previous financial year.

A police officer in the UK is assaulted every 27 minutes, according to these figures. That is 56 officers attacked on the streets of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland every day.

Steve Evans, vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales blamed falling officer numbers for the increase in police assaults.

In a year the UK police service lost around 2.4% of its officer numbers – there were 3,275 fewer sworn officers in September 2013 than there were in September 2012.

Mr Evans said: “Clearly the number of police officers on the streets have gone down and people know that. If visible presence has gone down – does that make people feel more confident to have a go at a police officer?”