‘Officers at risk due to delays with training’

29 September 2020

The Force will continue to put officers at risk while it fails to prioritise the production of a better training package to ensure they can safely deal with incidents involving vehicles, according to West Midlands Police Federation.

The Federation has been calling on the Force to do more to protect officers after a spate of incidents in which officers, locally and nationally, have been injured by people making off after a police stop.

But, at the most recent Force assaults meeting, it was announced the Force was waiting for the College of Policing to re-write the training package and this would not be ready for launch until April next year.

“The fact that the training is being updated is, of course, good news. I understand it will be a scenario based package, giving officers guidance on how to deal with people in a vehicle; something we feel is needed,” says Jon Nott, chair of West Midlands Police Federation.

“But while this is progress of sorts, we are disappointed and frustrated at the slow progress on this issue.

“The Force has had the internal recommendations for a year now and the lowest level response was to put together a training video which it has done but, frankly, this falls short of what is required unless there is a compliant member of the public in the car.

“This is something we will raise again with the Force to reiterate our concerns. We feel the Force has had more than enough evidence to show that there is an issue and that officers are being left vulnerable to being seriously injured or even killed. It appears the Force is willing to take that risk and wait for national changes but meanwhile that leaves our officers in danger. It is totally unacceptable that, having recognised officers’ vulnerability, the Force is prepared to wait even longer before implementing change.”

Tim Rogers, deputy secretary of West Midlands Police Federation and national Federation lead for pursuits and driver training, is equally frustrated with the Force stance.

He explained: “The five options put forward to the Force to address the increase in incidents in which officers were being injured at police stops started with the basic video. This should have been the first stage followed by design and implementation of useful practical training. It has taken over a year for a basic video to be launched, and now the Force is saying it’s OK to wait until the recommendation for the national review comes out.

“The figures quoted by the Force in terms of officers injured by vehicles are low but the next officer injured as a result of an attempted vehicle extraction needs careful scrutiny from a legal perspective. The Force knows there is a risk, it identified this. It concedes officers have no tactics nor training to deal with these incidents yet it is content for them to continue to face this danger untrained. This is a foreseeable risk and one that would make any injured officer eligible to pursue a personal injury claim.

“Having identified a clear and serious risk, 13 months on we still do not have appropriate measures in place. Leaving officers in a position of known vulnerability is incomprehensible. The first duty of any police force should be the protection of its workforce.”