Federation chair calls for massive investment in policing in TV interview

30 August 2022

The chair of West Midlands Police Federation has spoken about officers’ frustrations with the criminal justice system during an interview on national television.

Rich Cooke called for tougher sentences for people caught in possession of weapons, during a discussion on policing and the criminal justice system with presenter Jeremy Kyle on Talk TV.

Rich said: “Most of my colleagues would agree we need tougher sentences but unfortunately the powers that be – chief officers and above – don’t seem to agree.

“They seem to be too busy making excuses for criminals. There’s confused messages going through the criminal justice system.

“Even at the point of arrest, I can tell you examples of people who have been found with knives in areas where murders have happened and because they’re still classed as juvenile, they’ve been refused detention in custody.

“That’s because of protocols within the system and they need to stop. And what the police need to do, because I speak on behalf of the police, is make sure that whenever anyone’s caught with a knife they’re kept in custody, they’re charged and they go before the courts.“

He added: “We need far tougher sentences on knife crime. There’s supposed to be rules around repeat offenders going to prison, and even those aren’t enforced.

“We see time and time again, offenders with the most vicious weapons on the street that we have arrested, we have dealt with, we put them before the courts and they’re released the same day.

“That’s the most frustrating thing.”

Rich called on police chiefs and politicians to back officers in their fight against crime.

He said: “Our officers are doing their damnedest and they’re so frustrated at the lack of backing from leadership, the lack of backing from politicians.

“Politicians are full of warm words yet they’ve absolutely decimated the police service over the last 10 or 12 years – make no mistake about it.”

And he also called for a massive investment in policing, training, and infrastructure to get the police back into communities.

Rich said: “I think the problem is that the type of policing we need, which is rooted in local communities, has sadly disappeared over the last 12 to 15 years.

“We’ve had this business culture in the upper echelons of policing, who’ve decided we need to treat the public like customers.

“They’ve taken away local police stations – mine has been turned into luxury flats. We’re no longer in communities. We don’t know what’s going on as much. And we’re far further away from the public than we’ve ever been.”

He added: “It’s not only about police officer numbers, it’s about infrastructure. Numbers have gone up recently, we welcome that, but if there isn’t a local station, if officers aren’t invested in with training.

“The other day I was at Wolverhampton. There’s one tutor constable per nine recruits on that particular day. So one experienced officer trying to train nine officers.

“Normally it would be one to four, but even one to four is a disgrace. The new recruits are being let down.

“Give us the investment in terms of training, we need forensic investigators to back us up, we need less bureaucracy, we need people to back us on stop and search, because there are far too many mixed messages on stop and search, so we can go out there are really tackle the criminals.

“Believe you me, that’s what we all want to do,” he added.

Watch Rich’s interview on the Talk TV YouTube channel.