‘We need to protect the protectors’
17 June 2024
West Mercia Police Federation chair Steve Butler has described assaults on officers as ‘disgraceful and deplorable’ after it was revealed there were more than 40,000 attacks across the country in the past year.
Steve said ‘we need to protect the protectors’ as he called for courts to use their full powers when dealing with offenders who assault officers.
The figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that, in the West Mercia region, there were 634 assaults on police officers in the 12 months to 31 March 2023. Of those, 177 resulted in an officer being injured.
Across England and Wales, there was a total of 40,330 attacks on officers, 11,022 of which resulted in an injury to an officer.
Steve said: “It’s absolutely disgraceful and deplorable that our members are being attacked in the course of their duties.
“As a Federation, we reject the view that it comes with the job. It can never be acceptable to attack police officers.
“Of course it’s only a tiny minority of people, and we’re grateful for the support for police officers from the overwhelming majority of the public.
“We need those who attack police officers to feel the full weight of the law.
“The maximum sentence for assaults on blue light workers increased last year from 12 months to two years, and we need that to be implemented by the courts.
“Put simply, we need to protect the protectors.”
Steve said the shocking figures also added weight to calls by the Police Federation of England and Wales for the wider roll-out of Taser to all frontline officers should they wish to be equipped with it.
He said: “Taser is an effective means of dealing with many situations that our members have to face.
“Having it as part of their toolkit is a real deterrent, and just drawing it out in the majority of cases brings the violence or the threat of violence to an end.
“Officers should have that protection, and the ability to protect the public too, if they wish to.”
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