‘Courts must use full sentencing powers on officer assaults’
28 May 2021
Assaults on police officers must be punished with the maximum sentences available under new guidelines, West Midlands Police Federation has insisted.
Branch chair Jon Nott said judges and magistrates should ensure the revised sentencing guidelines, which come into force in July, are used to their full effect on anyone who attacks an emergency service worker.
He spoke out after the new advice was published by the Sentencing Council, the independent body set up to promote greater transparency and consistency in sentencing.
For the first time, judges and magistrates in England and Wales will be given specific guidance for sentencing offenders convicted of assault on emergency service workers.
Jon said: “Assaults on police officers are totally unacceptable but are sadly commonplace. To assault a police officer, prison officer or any other emergency service worker is to attack society itself and should never be accepted as ‘part of the job’.
“We welcome the new sentencing guidelines but judges and magistrates must use them to their full extent to ensure those who assault police officers and other emergency service workers receive the maximum tariff sentences available.”
The revised guidelines are a direct result of the Police Federation’s Protect the Protectors campaign which triggered a change in law to double the maximum sentence for assaults on police officers and other emergency service workers from six to 12 months.
The Federation supports a maximum tariff of 24 months and not 12 months, at least, because of the likelihood of offenders being released before the completion of their sentences.
The Government has pledged to increase the maximum sentence from 12 months to two years for assaults on emergency workers through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is currently at the committee stage in Parliament.
The new advice includes factors classed as “high culpability”, such as the “intention to cause fear of serious harm, including disease transmission” in common assault cases, as well as intentional coughing or spitting in both common assault and ABH offences.
Responding to the publication of the guidelines, the Federation’s national chair John Apter, said: “During the last few years, we have been highlighting to the Sentencing Council the dangers officers face and our serious concern about some perverse sentences, which has seen people walking from the court after some vicious attacks on our colleagues.
“It’s good to see that the Sentencing Council has taken on board our views about assaults on police, including the vile acts of spitting and weaponising Covid, and these revised guidelines are a step in the right direction.
“What we need to see now is judges making full use of the flexibility the guidelines provide to ensure that the sentence handed down reflects the seriousness and gravity of the crime.
“We will be watching closely to ensure we see a reduction in perverse sentences which result in thugs who attack emergency workers walking free from court with little more than a slap on the wrist.”
