ESSEX Police Federation has said it fears that, with officer numbers falling,\u00a0Bobbies on the Beat\u00a0will not always be\u00a0able to be\u00a0there to save lives as\u00a0they have\u00a0done in the past.<\/p>\n
Mark Smith, chairman of\u00a0the federation, said officers were saving lives and going above and beyond their duties “daily”. But he warned that it was a “genuine possibility” that officers will, at times, no longer\u00a0be\u00a0there to help members of the public as numbers drastically fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Estimating that 1,300 officers will be lost from the force in total, Mr Smith said: “Unfortunately, if our resources are constantly tied up, one of the things we may stop doing is actually being there to help, at times.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Mr Smith said that agencies or hospitals responsible for vulnerable people will need to “step up a bit” and ensure they look after those in their care.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“If these people that we are helping are maybe suffering from mental health issues, or maybe being seen by hospitals, hospitals now need to start taking control and looking after these people, because we might not be there to save them,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The chairman was speaking after several Essex Police officers were awarded chief constable’s commendations for savings the lives of members of the public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Mr Smith said: “I’m proud of our officers in Essex, and I\u2019m proud of policing in this country because it\u2019s what we\u2019ve always done, it\u2019s what we\u2019re here for, to protect the public.<\/p>\n
“Crime fighting is part of our job, but it\u2019s also protecting the public, and that\u2019s a major thing that we do.<\/p>\n
“And I\u2019m very proud to be a police officer because that\u2019s what we joined for, what I joined for and what everybody else joined for, to protect the public.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX Police Federation has said it fears that, with officer numbers falling,\u00a0Bobbies on the Beat\u00a0will not always be\u00a0able to be\u00a0there to save lives as\u00a0they have\u00a0done in the past. Mark Smith,\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1996,"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\/2205"}],"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=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2206,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions\/2206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}