More than 1,000 assaults a month on UK police officers

POLICE officers were assaulted at least 6,854 times in the first six months of the last financial year, it can be revealed.

However, as those numbers do not include the UK’s two biggest forces – the Met and Police Scotland – many more officers will have been attacked on duty during the six months between UK between April and September 2014.

Every force was asked to reveal its records on police officer assaults in a Freedom of Information Act request.

Different forces use different systems to capture and record the data, so it is difficult to give a precise comparison, but the four forces with the highest number of assaults were PSNI, Greater Manchester Police, Hampshire and West Yorkshire Police.

A total of 1,349 officers were assaulted in that six month period at the PSNI, while 476 officers were assaulted at Greater Manchester and 356 officers were attacked at West Yorkshire Police. Hampshire Police recorded 517 cases of “all violent crimes against police workers” in that six month period.

Forces with fewer of assaults were Warwickshire, City of London and Bedfordshire where there were 18, 8 and 6, assaults respectively. There were just two officers who were recorded to have been assaulted at South Yorkshire Police in the six months according to the force’s Freedom of Information response.

Police Scotland recorded 3,334 assaults on “emergency workers” between 1 April and 30 September 2014, but this also includes police staff, as well as NHS and fire service workers.

In response to the FOI request, the Metropolitan Police said it recorded 2,518 assaults, but this also included police staff, as well as officers and staff from other forces who had been a victim of assault in London – all of whom may have been on or off duty at the time.

And some forces noted that their results refer to the number of assaults on officers rather than the number of officers assaulted.

However, the patchy figures highlight an ongoing problem with collating the figures which the Police Federation has spoken out against.

“I have raised this issue time and time again that we are not recording assaults against police officers properly,” said Neil Bowles, South Yorkshire Police Federation chairman.

The Home Office and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary have not officially or accutately recorded these figures since 2004/5.

Steve White, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, told Policeoracle.com that it is “shocking” that the data is inaccurate and that he was in talks with the Home Secretary Theresa May calling for more consistency in the statistics.

“The problem that we have is that every single force collects and collates the data in a different way. We know the data is inaccurate. Some forces are very good at recording the information and some aren’t so good.”

“Equally important is the issue of the Home Office, which used to have the responsibility to monitor assaults but has since decided that it doesn’t need to do that any more. Myself and Andy Fittes [PFEW general secretary] at the last meeting with the Home Secretary in Autumn raised the issue as a real problem.

“She expressed surprise that the Home Office no longer did this and requested her officials to sort that out. We haven’t had an update since then but we will be holding the Home Secretary to account on this and making sure that there is consistent recording and that it captures the detail of it so that we can understand the extent of the problem. Then we can get in the bones of resolving the problem.”

Nick Smart, Chairman of West Yorkshire Police Federation added: “This just shows what a fallacy of crime recording it is. We cannot just pick and choose what we want to record. Officers who are assaulted should be part of the crime figures. Otherwise it doesn’t reference the true nature of the dangerous duties they go to or how many officers are being assaulted through the court of their daily work. It doesn’t paint a true picture of the high stress and danger officers are facing.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “Attacks on police officers are totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Officers do a difficult job protecting our communities and keeping crime down and it is right that we have laws in place to punish those who try to do them harm.

“We are currently working with the Police Federation and individual police forces to ensure the accuracy and consistency of police assault figures submitted to the Home Office.”