#ProtectTheProtectors: The Government must look at tougher sentencing

5 July 2019

At Kent Federation our thoughts are with the 11 officers assaulted in just one weekend and we hope they recover quickly from their injuries. As a Federation we support officers who have been assaulted and will make contact with all of them to ensure they have everything in place around them that they are entitled to. We also try to understand how and why the assault occurred in order to press for better prevention to stop officers being assaulted.

Everyday Police officers are assaulted and abused for simply doing the job we as a society ask them to do. It is morally wrong, socially unacceptable and must be dealt with using the full weight of the law.

For these reasons we have continued to lobby Kent MP’s to support even tougher sentencing on those who choose to assault officers, we have also seen the Chief Constable of Kent agree to writing impact statements to the courts for when officers are assaulted. We are also now sent data around assaults on officers and we are using this to press our case for better equipment, such as taser, and also training for officers.

It is vital that we work with the force to address these issues. Less officers, less funding, more demand particularly in violence related offences, it cannot be a coincidence that we see more assaults on officers. The Government must act to reverse funding cuts reverse cuts to officer numbers and reverse the undermining of the use of legitimate police powers such as stop and search.