Same again from the Home Secretary attacking the police

HOME Secretary Theresa May came to this year’s Police Federation conference with the intention of trying to “beat up” the police service again, the Essex Joint Branch Board Chairman has said.

Mark Smith has defended police officers serving in England and Wales today after Mrs May urged delegates in Bournemouth to “face up to the past and right the wrongs that continue to jeopardise the work of police officers today”.

She told officers that the Hillsborough tragedy of 1989 should be a “touchstone” for everything they do. “Let the hostility, the obfuscation and the attempts to blame the fans serve as a reminder of the need for change,” she said.

Essex Chairman Mr Smith said it was “fair” to talk about Hillsborough, but not to blame the people in the police service now for the tragedy.

“I think she came to conference with the intention of trying to beat us up again. She’s beaten us up on historical matters,” he said.

Pointing out that some of his local board members were ten-years-old at the time of the disaster, he explained: “We have moved on. We have changed. The forces have changed. She said so herself. We are talking about a time when a constable wouldn’t even look at a superintendent unless they were invited to do so. It’s a completely different era.”

The Home Secretary’s speech came after Steve White, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, had paid his respects to the families of the victims of Hillsborough and led a minute’s silence to remember those who died.

Acknowledging that Hillsborough was “a tragedy that should never – and will never – be forgotten”, Mr White said that “we must draw a distinction between the actions of a minority of senior officers decades ago and the behaviours of the majority of our members today”.

Mr Smith also took umbrage with some of the accusations Mrs May levelled against the Federation.

She described some Federation spending as “questionable and opaque”, but Mr Smith said the Home Secretary had got her facts wrong.

“She talked about ‘holiday homes’, but failed to mention that they had been made available for the welfare of officers, so that they can recover,” he said. “And she doesn’t like that we have bought offices, but a lot of us have had to buy offices because our forces are looking at moving. It was a lot of nothing really.”