150 extra Taser plus surge funding for Kent Police

4 March 2020

The Chairman of Kent Police Federation says he’s pleased that Kent Police is one of 18 forces in England and Wales to get a share in £41.5m to tackle violent crime. The surge funding was announced in the week that the force also received £123,750 for 150 extra Taser.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, speaking at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and National Police Chiefs' Council Partnership summit, said: "I'm pleased to announce an additional £41.5 million surge funding to help 18 forces drive down the scale of the violent crime we are seeing in our streets."

Chairman of Kent Police Federation Neil Mennie said on BBC Radio Kent: “At the moment the sun is shining on us to an extent, which is fantastic. The more money and the more officers we can get, the better. This investment’s fantastic for all our members. We’re very pleased.”

Neil said he was also happy that the force was receiving more Taser, although the county is “ahead of the curve”, as the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable had already decided to fund Taser for any officer who wanted to carry one.

Violence against officers is still a problem in Kent, he said: “I see the figures every week and they’re still running far higher than I and my colleagues would like. It’s a real variety of kicking, biting, spitting, all sorts of different things. We’re working hard to try to get that down, and it would be nice too if the sentencing around the assaults on emergency service workers was commensurate with the assaults.”

He added that he would like to see a custodial sentence “as pretty much mandatory for anyone that assaults a police officer, or indeed any emergency service worker”.

Neil said he hoped to see an improvement in assault figures, particularly as part of the Taser roll-out. He emphasised that a Taser doesn’t always have to be deployed to be ‘used’; often just drawing it is effective: “To us, it’s just another tool in the range of equipment we carry and it’s an important tool, but of course we only use force as an absolute last resort. Sometimes we have to act very, very quickly, but it helps us have a selection of options when dealing with different and dynamic circumstances and people.

“I’ve spoken to colleagues who say just the fact of drawing it and red-dotting it works a high percentage of the time. Actual deployments are still fairly rare. But it’s important that everyone understands that even to get to that point of making the decision to draw it, the officers are meeting a very significant risk. It’s not something that they do lightly. The public seem very supportive of us carrying Taser. I think the more we get used to seeing it, the more comfortable everyone will be with it.”