THE Government\u2019s \u2018woefully\u2019 inadequate Firearms Review does not reflect the reality officers face at the sharp end of policing, says Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n
The Home Office recently finalised the report after three years of review.<\/p>\n
Published on a single webpage, it\u2019s just 325 words long and states that investigations which took place after the 2017 terrorist attacks \u2018worked well and were quickly concluded\u2019, that the length of time to investigate cases following a fatality can be stressful, but that significant delay had only been recorded in a \u2018small number of cases\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t reflect the realities and what\u2019s happening on the streets,\u201d Steve said. \u201cRegardless of how small the number of cases are in which investigations are taking too long, the fact that there are any investigations which take too long is deeply disappointing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw how quickly the Government moved when some of its own MPs and Lords were felt to have been under investigation for too long in criminal matters, resulting in far reaching changes to the bail structure, and yet are they suggesting that because the number is so small it\u2019s therefore acceptable that our colleagues are under the microscope for inordinate amounts of time? It clearly isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe review is woefully inadequate and is a betrayal of promises made by this Government, albeit under a different leader, but it\u2019s cynical.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time the review was instigated under David Cameron\u2019s Government, retention of firearms officers was a real issue, and it\u2019s indicative of other delays to legislation which could provide all officers with the protection they deserve, Steve added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve suffered at the hands of poor retention of firearms officers here in Essex and that has led to a real vigorous shakeup of how we do business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, if we can achieve that at the local level it\u2019s difficult to understand that the Government hasn\u2019t been able to achieve it at national level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe deserve better treatment across the board; whilst there are unique aspects to firearms policing and that\u2019s where this conversation started, let\u2019s not forget roads policing, let\u2019s not forget the seven, coming on for eight years in which the can has been kicked down the road when it comes to driver protection for officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clearly not an agenda item of any significance for this Government and it\u2019s disappointing, to put it mildly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics of the way firearms officers are treated in the aftermath of firing their weapon on duty say the investigations make them feel like suspects, rather than the professional witnesses they should be.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s important in that whole context is officer\u2019s perception is their reality. By and large officers perceive themselves, despite the best efforts of those practitioners that work in this area, officers perceive themselves to be suspects right from the get-go,\u201d Steve said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, we work hard to try and confound that expectation but that is their perception, and when we see acceptance of the status quo and no intention to change or improve matters is it any wonder that officers think that, despite our best efforts?\u201d<\/p>\n
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THE Government\u2019s \u2018woefully\u2019 inadequate Firearms Review does not reflect the reality officers face at the sharp end of policing, says Essex Police Federation. The Home Office recently finalised the report\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1616,"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\/4972"}],"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=4972"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4975,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4972\/revisions\/4975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}