EVERY officer in Essex should have a spit guard, the Chairman of Essex Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
Describing them as \u201creally important pieces of personal protective equipment\u201d, he said they should be considered in the same way as limb restraints or handcuffs.<\/p>\n
Steve said: \u201cThey are a really important piece of protective equipment which we can ask the PCC and Chief Constable to equip us with.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see a reasonable foreseeable harm to our colleagues, to our members \u2013 namely being spat at and the horrendous risk that that can carry, by which I’m alluding to someone with Hepatitis C or, God forbid, HIV.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose contagious diseases can, in certain circumstances, be transmitted through bodily fluid and in the very worst cases, if spit gets into the face, gets into the eyes, the nose or the mouth, there is a risk that those contagions can be passed on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is also the physical risk. If you spit at me, my only recourse is to use on you a not insubstantial amount of force to prevent you spitting at me again. That then attracts a risk for the public \u2013 a risk of injury and a risk of complaint. There’s also the perception issue and what that looks like. All those matters are addressed if the officer has access to a spit guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI equate spit guards to limb restraints and handcuffs, even, which are on the belt of every officer, available to every officer who’s in contact with the public and who might be required to arrest and restrain someone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe individual you are arresting or restraining, if they demonstrate the right behaviour they get handcuffed, if they demonstrate the right risk they get handcuffed, they get limb restrained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the same sense they should have the spit guard used on them, if they demonstrate the right risk for you. So they’re a reactive piece of kit which should be available on the utility belt and tac vest of every officer in Essex. That would be the position I’d like us to find ourselves in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve added that it was his job to persuade Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh that all officers should be routinely equipped with spit guards.<\/p>\n
He explained: \u201cArguably it’s the duty of the Chief Constable where we identify a reasonably foreseeable harm, to adequately equip our colleagues to deal with that. I see the issuing and the use of spit guards as the Chief Constable discharging that duty, and I see it as my job to bring him round, where possible, to that way of thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve had some initial approached to the Chief Constable and the Chief Officer team, and whilst their position is still \u2018it’s a no\u2019, they are engaging with us. We are in dialogue, and we’re talking and they are prepared to sit and listen. That’s all I can ask of them short of changing their minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m going to take it to him and his team next month in the form of a paper, I’m going to present the paper for presentation at the Chief Officer Management Group. It could well be that they decide then and there \u2018yes, let\u2019s take it forward\u2019, or it could be that we have to go away and do some more work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EVERY officer in Essex should have a spit guard, the Chairman of Essex Police Federation has said. Describing them as \u201creally important pieces of personal protective equipment\u201d, he said they\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2541,"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\/3176"}],"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=3176"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3226,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3176\/revisions\/3226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}