Thames Valley Backs Stop Racism Against Police Campaign

22 May 2026

“Hate crimes against officers must not be tolerated”, the Chair of Thames Valley Police Federation has said, as she backed the ‘Protect The Protectors: Stop Racism Against Police’ campaign.

At least 11,000 hate crimes have been committed against UK police officers in the past three years. A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request to UK police forces found that there were 10,922 reported hate crimes against officers from 27 forces from 2022 to 2025. However, the true figure is likely to be much higher – even close to double – as another 21 forces, including Thames Valley Police, were unable to provide data.

In addition, many officers may experience hate crime but feel unwilling or unable to report it to their force. In response to the findings, Humberside Police Federation Chair Lee Sims launched a campaign: ‘Protect The Protectors: Stop Racism Against Police’ late last year, in order to collect data on the scale of the issue, raise awareness of what the police were facing, and do more to protect officers and staff.

Thames Valley Police Federation Chair Aileen O’Connor said her Federation branch was proud to be backing the campaign, as “any hate crimes against our officers, physical or verbal, are not part of the job”.

She continued: “The fact that our officers are facing racial slurs or slurs of any nature is absolutely not acceptable – it's abhorrent. It must not be tolerated.

“And I think racist verbal abuse is a part of policing that is probably not reported in the same way as an assault, a kick or a punch. Words can sometimes be more hurtful than actual physical assault, and people might be embarrassed to report it. So we want to highlight this campaign, and make sure that these types of offences against our officers are dealt with in the same vein as physical assaults against our officers.”

Aileen added that hate crimes were an attack on people’s “whole being”: “Whether you're an Asian female, whether you're a Sikh male, whether you're a gay woman or a gay man, that is an attack on your personal makeup, that doesn't go away when you take that uniform off.

“And that's why we need to look at how these incidents are being recorded, to make sure they are being recorded correctly, and to make sure that our officers are supported through a really horrible time.”

Aileen said she was disappointed that Thames Valley Police was unable to provide data on hate crimes, but that she was working with the force to find a mechanism to properly measure assaults and abuse.

She said: “I'm going to be doing a bit of work with the service improvement team, to see if we can collect the data for the past six months. And I'm working on the data that I'm supplied with every day. I'm also going to send every single member of our Federation a snapshot survey, so that I can gather first-hand whether they have suffered racial abuse in the past year, and whether that's been recorded.” Aileen also argued that there should be national mandatory recording of racial abuse against police officers and staff.

She added that officers who witnessed a colleague being racially abused “should be an upstander, not a bystander”, saying: “If you’ve witnessed racially aggravated slurs against your colleagues, then you need to come forward and help us address the problem.”

Aileen continued: “There is support out there, including support from SAME (the Support Association for Minority Ethnic Staff) and us as a Federation. I'll be pushing the force to make sure that, when those incidents come to the forefront, they're being investigated properly with as much vigour behind them when they investigate assaults on officers.

“And I assure people that, if they come to the Federation, we will support them in whatever way that we can and drive it forward for them.”

She added: “I also want to say thank you to Lee Sims, the Chair of Humberside Police Federation, for starting this campaign and really bringing this issue to the forefront, and Martis Media for highlighting it. I would encourage every Federation branch to get behind this, because if you think it's not happening to your officers, you're naive – you need to make sure that you've got support mechanisms in place.”