Officer assault videos released to back campaign

24 April 2018

Officers being beaten, bitten, choked, attacked with a machete, slammed against the ground and kicked in the face have been captured on a new harrowing video from the Police Federation of England and Wales.

Federation data reveals that a shocking two million officers were subject to unarmed physical assaults in 2016 while 300,000 were attacked by a deadly weapon – that equates to one assault every four minutes.

Assaults are also commonplace on NHS staff, prison officers and firefighters.

The PFEW has released two snippets from the video to highlight the dangers emergency staff face every time they go on shift.

It comes as an Assaults on Emergency Services (Offences) Bill is due for its report stage reading in Parliament.

Introduced as a Private Members Bill by Rhondda MP Chris Bryant, it aims to make it an ‘aggravating factor’ to assault an emergency services worker.

PFEW Chair Calum Macleod says the video will be shown in full at next month’s PFEW ‘Protecting The Protectors’ Conference in Birmingham.

“We’ve released two teasers of the video to show that assaults should never be just part of the job,” he said.

“An assault on the emergency services is an assault on society itself and this should be reflected in the sentences handed out by the courts.

“It cannot be right that they should be at risk of being attacked, wounded and scarred physically and emotionally just for doing their job serving the public.

“The courts must send the strongest message that an assault on the emergency services will not be tolerated.

“We are thankful to Chris Bryant and all of the MPs who are backing the call for tougher sentences - we must Protect the Protectors.”

Calum is calling on the public to support the message too.

“We encourage everyone who wants to see tougher sentencing for those who abuse our emergency services to lobby their MPs to support Mr Bryant’s bill.

“They can back the campaign on social media using the Twitter hashtag #ProtectTheProtectors.”

The teaser videos show a female paramedic, who was sexually assaulted by a patient, a prison officer, who was horrifically slashed across his head and face with a razor blade and police officers who were bitten, knocked unconscious, and attacked with a machete.

To view the videos and find out more about the campaign visit; http://polfed.org/newsroom/5544.aspx