14 January 2021

PFEW Treasurer Simon Kempton: The threat of Covid-19 is invisible and ever-present

Police Federation of England and Wales Treasurer and serving Dorset Police officer Simon Kempton spoke on Times Radio yesterday about the ever-present invisible threat of COVID-19.

Simon said: “I’ve been in the police for 20 years now so obviously I’ve been assaulted.

“I’ve been spat at, had my eyes gauged and I’ve had someone pull a knife on me.

“That is all difficult to deal with and it has an effect on you, but once that dangers passed you don’t have to worry about the person with a knife following you home and threatening your family.

“COVID is different, you cannot see COVID coming”.

He went on to explain: “If you catch COVID you’re going to take it home, you’re going to hug your girlfriend, hug your daughter and you’re going to give them COVID.”

He discussed how front line workers have to deal with events such as protests, where often officers get screamed at or are in close proximity to others which causes risk of catching COVID.

Simon said: “Officers are then thinking ‘have I just caught COVID’, ‘am I going to go home and pass COVID onto my family’.” 

Dorset Police Federation is calling for officers to be on the vaccine priority list. More here https://www.polfed.org/dorset/news/2021/dorset-police-federation-calls-on-government-to-add-officers-to-the-priority-covid-19-vaccination-list/