Officer assaults: tough sentences needed

29 July 2021

The chair of West Midlands Police Federation has called for the toughest possible sentences to be handed down to thugs who attack officers.

Jon Nott said he was appalled at new figures which show that West Midlands Police officers were assaulted more than 1,000 times in the last year.

New Government figures show there were 566 assaults on officers causing injury in the year ending March 2021 and a further 518 assaults on officers without injury.

Nationally, there has been a 14 per cent rise in assaults on police officers. In the year ending March 2021, there were almost 37,000 assaults on police officers in England and Wales, including British Transport Police.

Of those, 25,734 were assaults without injury on a constable, an increase of 21 per cent compared with 21,321 in the previous year.

And 11,235 were assaults with injury on a constable, up by 1.2 per cent compared with 11,106 in the previous year.

Jon said: “These figures are absolutely unacceptable. I find it shocking that in the West Midlands Force area alone, on average three of our colleagues are attacked every single day just for doing their job.

“An attack on a police officer is an attack on society and it must not be tolerated.

“We’ve long been campaigning for tougher sentences for criminals who attack emergency services workers, and anyone convicted of attacking a police officer should feel the full weight of the law.

“We need the courts to pass down the toughest possible sentences to anyone convicted of such attacks. We need to send out the message that this is not acceptable. It needs to stop.”