Hampshire Police Federation spreads STEP message to Europe

24 April 2026

The Suicide Trauma Education Prevention – STEP – campaign spread its vital message to policing colleagues across Europe this week at the spring EuroCOP conference.

Spencer Wragg, Chair of Hampshire Police Federation, gave a presentation to delegates at the conference from countries including Spain, Greece, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Gibraltar, Ukraine, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Iceland, Cyprus and France.

Spencer said: “We know that suicide can affect any one at any time - and it was clear after speaking with colleagues from across the Europe that this crisis stretches beyond the UK.

“Countries and police unions at EuroCOP resonated with the lack of police officer suicide recording, the intrinsic link to increased risk to officers and staff when under misconduct investigation and the sporadic support available.”

In the UK, it is believed 47 of 70 police officer suicides and 173 of 236 attempted suicides between 2022 and 2025 are attributable to officers involved in misconduct or criminal investigations against them. In 2025 12 of 13 police officer suicides involved officers under investigation.

Spencer added: “It was also good to connect with non-Home Office forces from across the UK – including the Defence Police Federation, Scottish Police Federation, Civil Nuclear Police Federation, British Transport Police Federation and the Police Federation for Northern Ireland.

“Sadly two of these UK forces have lost an officer to suicide in the past month alone.

“There is so much good work going on in suicide prevention and STEP is just one part of that, however a more co-ordinated approach would ensure that as a service we reach out to as many people as possible and potentially we/you could make a difference to just one person.”

The STEP campaign is calling on forces to introduce mandatory Trim referrals following a police officer or staff attending a suicide and calls on forces to better collect data on police officer and staff suicide/attempted suicide so we can better measure the extent of the issue and wants to encourage colleagues to talk about the taboo subject and not be concerned about that.

The campaign also promotes the Stay Alive App, developed by the Grassroots Suicide Prevention Charity, which provides tailored information and tools to people in crisis.  

Spencer concluded: “The Stay Alive App comes in 22 different languages and many of those present downloaded the App with the intention of taking it back to their respective country in order to try to break the stigma around suicide and support those in crisis.”

After the meeting Jonne Rinne, President of EuroCOP and a Finnish Police Officer, said: "Coming together is a beginning, working together is success. We are not about building just links... we at EuroCOP seek to build long standing relationships, and our organisation have embraced the STEP message of Staying alive in suicide prevention."  

If police officers and staff are struggling they can also contact the Mental Health Crisis Line (call 0300 131 2789) and Samaritans (116 123).