THE Protect the Protectors law will only be of value in protecting police officers if magistrates are given the ability to impose the new stiffer sentencing powers, Essex Police Federation has warned.<\/p>\n
The Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill has gained Royal Assent and will be enshrined in law from November. It means anyone who assaults or sexually assaults a blue light worker can be punishable by up to 12 months in prison.<\/p>\n
However, Essex Police Federation Chairman Steve Taylor says magistrates\u2019 hands will still be tied when it comes to sentencing thugs who assault police officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s encouraging that we\u2019ve been able to get any form of positive legislation through the houses in the current climate.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I don\u2019t think we should kid ourselves, it\u2019s going to make absolutely no difference whatsoever because there already exists powers for offences against officers at magistrates level, with exactly the same level of sentencing power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is because the Government, and successive Governments, have chosen not to enact a particular law (section 154 of Criminal Justice Act 2003) which gives the magistrates the ability to sentence someone for more than 6 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, until that is enacted, the additional protections which we fought on for officers in the bill don\u2019t actually take effect, they don\u2019t mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve says it somethings that #ProtectTheProtectors campaigners have pushed for but warned it was \u2018a tough task\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve asked the question but have categorically been told no,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe temper that frustration with the fact that we have been able to get the legislation through, especially with Brexit happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not forget that paramedics, firefighters and nurses had no protection at all before the bill came in, so there is an improvement for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for police officers it takes us no further forward so there\u2019s an awful lot of work to do and we mustn\u2019t get carried away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recent high-profile cases which have seen officers spat at as part of their duties has also brought the bill into sharp focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted spitting to be included as an aggravating factor and with mandatory blood tests for those that have spat contagion, who have spat at officers, so we can check whether there is anything the officers needs protection against,\u201d Steve added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of these elements were argued out at committee stage and my understanding is that the HIV lobby pushed hard for the blood test to be removed for fear of it stigmatising those with that condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd our arguments around spitting being an aggravating factor were rebuffed as magistrates already have guidance around spitting to be considered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Protect the Protectors law will only be of value in protecting police officers if magistrates are given the ability to impose the new stiffer sentencing powers, Essex Police Federation\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3931,"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\/4729"}],"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=4729"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4766,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4729\/revisions\/4766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}