Courts urged to use sentencing guidance on officer assaults

27 May 2021

Judges and magistrates are being urged to use new guidelines to ensure assaults on police officers are punished with the maximum sentences available.

Humberside Police Federation secretary Rob Grunner welcomed the revised guidance published by the independent Sentencing Council but said it had to be used to its full effect by the courts when it comes into effect in July.

He said: “Assaults on police officers are totally unacceptable and occur far too often. To assault a police officer, prison officer or any other emergency service worker is to attack society itself and no one should ever accept an assault at work as simply part of the job.

“The Sentencing Council’s new guidelines are very much welcomed by our members and by the Federation itself.

“Judges and magistrates must now use the new guidelines to their full extent to make sure anyone who assaults a police officer and other emergency service workers receives the maximum tariff sentences available.”

The revised guidelines were issued as a direct result of the Police Federation’s Protect the Protectors campaign which triggered a change in law to double the maximum sentence for assaults on police officers and other emergency service workers from six to 12 months.

The Government has pledged to increase the maximum sentence from 12 months to two years for assaults on emergency workers through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is currently at the committee stage in Parliament.

The new advice includes factors classed as “high culpability”, such as the “intention to cause fear of serious harm, including disease transmission” in common assault cases, as well as intentional coughing or spitting in both common assault and ABH offences.

Responding to the publication of the guidelines, Police Federation national chair John Apter said: “During the last few years, we have been highlighting to the Sentencing Council the dangers officers face and our serious concern about some perverse sentences, which has seen people walking from the court after some vicious attacks on our colleagues.

“It’s good to see that the Sentencing Council has taken on board our views about assaults on police, including the vile acts of spitting and weaponising Covid, and these revised guidelines are a step in the right direction. 

“What we need to see now, is judges making full use of the flexibility the guidelines provide to ensure that the sentence handed down reflects the seriousness and gravity of the crime.

“We will be watching closely to ensure we see a reduction in perverse sentences which result in thugs who attack emergency workers walking free from court with little more than a slap on the wrist.”