ESSEX Police officers are doing their best to protect the public, even as Government messaging regarding the coronavirus pandemic has shifted, Essex Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
In mid-May the Government relaxed its lockdown measures in England and changed its slogan from \u2018Stay at home\u2019 to \u2018Stay alert\u2019. This was followed by new\/updated guidelines from the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council, stating that police officers should only enforce the health protection guidelines, not Government guidance such as social distancing.<\/p>\n
Federation Chairman Steve Taylor said: \u201cThe guidance does flip-flop all over the place, but you could say we\u2019re doing a better job of weathering this storm than those who are issuing the guidance in the first place\u2026 It is a challenge, but we try hard to put our duties first, look after people and try to keep them safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve said that Essex officers had done \u201creally, really well\u201d at policing by the three Es \u2013\u00a0engage, explain and encourage \u2013 before they reach the fourth \u201ce\u201d, the enforcement stage. He said: \u201cWhat never changes is our mission. That policing by consent model doesn\u2019t change and that underpins, rightfully, everything that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cOur communities need us to work through the confusing advice and legislation and make it work. We can\u2019t simply just wring our hands and say: \u2018This is ridiculous, it\u2019s not working. We\u2019re going home\u2019. That\u2019s never an option for us. We\u2019ve got to make it work. And that\u2019s what I mean when I say officers and members in Essex are doing a good job of getting that right and striking the right balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cBehind the scenes we do have views on the inconsistency of the guidance, but at the front end we\u2019ve just got to make it work and, by and large, that\u2019s what our members in Essex are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve said that Essex Police Federation was \u201cgetting its point across\u201d about how this guidance has been handled. \u201cWe\u2019re in close contact with our national organisation, we\u2019re in contact with Essex Police through the gold and silver groups, and Essex is in close contact with the regional strategic resilience group, The Essex Resilience Forum. We have a seat at all the tables.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX Police officers are doing their best to protect the public, even as Government messaging regarding the coronavirus pandemic has shifted, Essex Police Federation has said. In mid-May the Government\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130583,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130432\/revisions\/130583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/110698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}