HARSHER sentences imposed on people who have assaulted officers during the COVID-19 pandemic must remain, Essex Police Federation has urged, as new stats show a shocking rise in attacks on emergency service workers.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
Sickening recent assaults in the county include officers being dragged down the road by a vehicle, while colleagues have suffered broken arms and have been hit by metal bars as they attempted to make arrests.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
Assaults on emergency service workers had risen by 24 per cent in the four weeks to June 7th, primarily driven by a surge in COVID-19 spitting and coughing attacks and the recent protests across England and Wales, new NPCC figures show.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
It\u2019s prompted Home Secretary Priti Patel to pledge a crackdown on people who assault police officers and other emergency service workers.\u00a0<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
She wants to see people who carry out assaults receive up to two years in prison for the crime, to \u2018make these thugs think twice\u2019.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
It\u2019s a sentiment echoed by Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cWe had an officer the other day whose arm was broken while trying to arrest somebody. We have officers that have been dragged down the street by a vehicle. We\u2019re having officers hit with metal bars, officers bitten,\u201d she said.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers are spat at and coughed at, and that is being followed up by their attacker saying they have coronavirus. It\u2019s a significant threat.\u201d<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
Mandatory jail time could be the deterrent needed to put a halt to the violence against officers, Laura added.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
Harsher sentences have been brought in to deal with the COVID-19 assaults and the Protect the Protectors Bill, which in 2018 doubled penalties for those attacking officers to a year, is in place.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
But more needs to be done, says Laura.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen some harsher sentences coming in relation to assaults on police. They need to be maintained. It needs to be more than just the flavour of the month,\u201d she said.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be a strong message sent out which then hopefully make people realise if they do assault officers, then they\u2019re going to end up going to prison.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no excuses for assaulting a police officer. They are there to do a job, to protect the public.\u201d<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
Now Laura wants to see the Home Secretary\u2019s positive messaging about sentencing backed up by Government action.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a bad start, but it\u2019s one of those where it\u2019s got to be followed through. It\u2019s got to be backed up by it actually happening,\u201d she said.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no point saying, \u2018send them to prison for two years, you could say, \u2018send them to prison for five years\u2019, if it\u2019s not going to happen or they\u2019re not going to get custodial sentences then the words mean nothing, and that doesn\u2019t protect anybody.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s also the issue of capacity in prisons, which I know is part of the reason that magistrates don\u2019t send a lot of people to prison. There\u2019s a much bigger picture to it, and it needs to be provided with the funding that\u2019s required allowing magistrates and judges to pass down stricter sentences which then may act as a deterrent.\u201d\u00a0<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HARSHER sentences imposed on people who have assaulted officers during the COVID-19 pandemic must remain, Essex Police Federation has urged, as new stats show a shocking rise in attacks on\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107452,"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\/134645"}],"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=134645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134786,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134645\/revisions\/134786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/107452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=134645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=134645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=134645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}