Chief Backs Anti-Racism Campaign

8 December 2025

Humberside Police’s Chief Constable is backing the Federation’s anti-racism campaign, saying he has seen an increase in racist abuse against staff and officers, and that the force will do everything it can to support its people.

As part of Humberside Police Federation’s campaign to ‘Protect The Protectors: Stop Racism Against Police’, it surveyed minority ethnic officers and staff – over 50% of whom said they had experienced racial abuse while on duty.

Chief Constable Chris Todd said he was standing alongside the Federation to support officers and staff, and that he was expanding the force’s ‘seven point plan’ to include hate crime.

CC Todd said: “Humberside Police’s mission is to be victim-focused, community-focused and workforce-focused. That workforce focus is what this is all about and if our workforce is suffering in any way, I want to do as much as I possibly can to address that.

“When our colleagues are racially abused or discriminated against, it feels so very personal, and it’s important to recognise that.

“We've had a long-standing campaign to address physical assaults on police officers and staff, and assaults are never acceptable, but sometimes people can rationalise it and think, ‘It's an assault on the police service rather than me as an individual’. Not always, but sometimes that's the case – and it’s still awful. But when it's discriminatory behaviour, it is always personal and can have a different type of impact.”

CC Todd said it was vital that the force presented a united front with the Federation “because we are all part of the same organisation, the same policing family and we should all be endeavouring to achieve the same aims”.

He added that he believes racist incidents are underreported, and that there have been an increase in such incidents over the past few years.

He said: “I think officers are experiencing [racial abuse] more frequently at the moment, regrettably. I feel this is indicative of a really disappointing change in attitude among some people. It's only some people, but one case is one case too many.

“As part of Humberside Police Federation’s campaign to ‘Protect the Protectors: Stop Racism Against Police’, it surveyed minority ethnic officers and staff – over 50% of whom said they had experienced racial abuse while on duty.

“I want our colleagues to know that they will be supported [if they report a hate crime incident] and that we will deal with this in a sympathetic, empathetic way and according to their needs. Sometimes people might say, ‘I need to step away from this. Can you support me in that?’. Absolutely, we would do. But other times, people might say, ‘No, I want to be supported by being allowed to continue to do my job as I should be doing it’. Assessing victims' needs is what we would encourage in any other context, and this is exactly the same. Officers and members of police staff should have the confidence to come forward and know they'll be supported.”

CC Todd said that supervisors should also be helped to support their colleagues, which might mean additional training or awareness-raising. He gave a recent example of how a supervisor had stood up for their colleague: “An officer was out in uniform, and a vehicle drove past and somebody felt it appropriate to shout racial abuse out of the window. The supervisor noticed it, but the officer’s initial response was: ‘Oh, don't worry about it. I don't want you to do anything about it. It happens’. But the supervisor thought: ‘It’s not acceptable. We've got the VRM number and we will go after the owner of that vehicle.’

“They did that, and got the suspect in custody and interviewed them. I hope that demonstrated to the officer and other colleagues that you will be supported in this and you don't need to take the lead. We take the lead on this, in the same way as we would do with physical assaults. We don't expect you to provide your own statement, that's not part of our seven point plan.”

CC Todd explained that he was extending Humberside Police’s seven point plan to include hate crime. He said: “We need to make sure that victim impact statements are getting fed into the court process, in the same way as we do for physical assaults. And then we will monitor it to ensure that the courts are taking note of those impact statements and are treating these cases as seriously as they possibly can.”

He said: “I will work very closely with the judiciary to make sure they understand why this is necessary, and the impact they can have by dealing with it appropriately, so that racial abuse is not seen as something that is normal or accepted in any way in society.

“I've been in policing for 35 years and sadly, for too long, this issue has not been supported. We can't undo the past, but we can make sure that we support people now and we absolutely must do that, because it is not acceptable.”