Federation Chair: "Policing requires courage and commitment - but we can't put them under risk unnecessarily"

16 June 2020

Chairman Neil Mennie was on BBC Radio Kent this morning highlighting the challenge we have policing protests during the pandemic. Neil said: "Our job requires courage and commitment - but we need to avoid putting police officers at risk unnecessarily"

Neil was speaking after the Police Federation of England and Wales and the Metropolitan Police Federation called for protests to be banned during the pandemic for the protection of officers’ safety and wellbeing. 23 officers were hurt in London this weekend when the demonstration turned violent. But Neil said it was important that peaceful protest continue to be permitted.

He said: “In ordinary times, protest is an important right for people to be able carry out peacefully, but of course we are in the midst of a pandemic, and despite the best efforts of organisers to maintain social distancing and provide masks, passions and feelings tend to run high and when we are at a position where people aren’t adhering to the rules it puts everyone at risk; it puts the protesters at risk, it puts the public at risk and of course our colleagues who are responsible for policing these things. In Kent we have seen nothing that has been of the scale of the events we have seen in London but it is a concern and we do understand [calls for protests to be banned].

“Our police officers here are very resilient, they will do what they are told. It is a job that requires a certain amount of courage and commitment and our officers are more than capable of that. But we have a responsibility to avoid putting them at risk unnecessarily. They will always come out and do their job and carry out their duties but again it is about making sure that if they are deployed at a peaceful protest that they are protected as well and we are not in a position that we are exposing officers. We have a duty to look after them and they are an important part of society - just as much as the protestors are.

“I hope it doesn’t come to a ban because then responsibility for policing that falls to us again. I really really hope that people can protest peacefully and we don’t see a repeat of the violence that took place on the weekend in the capital.”