New videos show the harsh reality of policing
24 April 2018
Police and other emergency service workers share their harrowing experiences of being assaulted on duty in a harrowing new video from the Police Federation of England and Wales.
A full length version of the video will be screened at the Federation’s annual conference on 22-23 May before being released online – this year’s conference theme is ‘Protecting the Protectors: The Reality of Policing’.
Today we release two atmospheric teasers of the upcoming video. They include a female paramedic who was sexually assaulted by a patient, a prison officer horrifically slashed across his head and face with a razor blade and police officers who were respectively bitten, choked unconscious, attacked with a machete, slammed against the ground, kicked in the face – this is not, and should never be, seen as part of the job. An assault on the emergency services is an assault on society itself and this should be reflected in the sentences handed out to offenders by the courts.
The Federation is fully supportive of a Private Members Bill at Parliament, sponsored by Labour MP for Rhondda, Chris Bryant, which proposes to make it an aggravating factor to assault an emergency services worker. The Bill has so far enjoyed cross party support and will again be debated by MPs at its Report Stage on Friday 27 April 2018.
Calum Macleod, Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “The videos show the bravery of our emergency services and the dangers they face every time they put on the uniform. 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 is an attack society itself and will not be tolerated. So we are thankful to Chris Bryant and all of the MPs who are backing the call for tougher sentences. We must Protect the Protectors.”
Research by the Federation suggests more than two million officers were subject to an unarmed physical assault in 2016 and 300,000 more were attacked with a deadly weapon. This equates to roughly one assault every four minutes - a frightening and unacceptable reality. Assaults are also commonplace against NHS staff, paramedics, firefighters and prison officers.
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 Assaults on Emergency Services (Offences) Bill and to back the campaign on social media using the Twitter hashtag #ProtectTheProtectors.
