Officer assaults: offenders should be severely punished

28 June 2022

The chair of West Midlands Police Federation has questioned claims that tougher sentences are ineffective in reducing assaults on emergency services workers.

Rich Cooke said stiff penalties help send the message that such attacks are unacceptable, show support for frontline workers in their jobs and is simply the justice officers deserve as victims of crime.

He said: “They deserve to do their jobs free from the threat and fear of violence.

“We don’t accept attacks on people in other professions so why should we accept attacks on police officers for simply doing their jobs?

“Frankly, deterrent or not - and I hardly think it will encourage violence - those who attack emergency workers are attacking us all, society itself. Offenders should be punished most severely as a result.”

“As a Federation we’re proud of the campaign work we’ve done to support and protect our members and we now need the support and protection of the courts, so that if you assault a police officer you can expect to go to prison.”

Rich’s comments follow the publication of a report by the charity Transform Justice ‘Protect the protectors? Do criminal sanctions reduce violence against police and NHS staff?’.

The report states it takes a closer, evidence-based look at increased penalties for assaults against emergency workers and demonstrates the ineffectiveness of this approach on any level.

Steve Hartshorn, chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, took part in a panel discussion to coincide with the report’s launch which asked: ‘Will harsher sanctions reduce assaults on police and NHS workers?’

Asked of his personal experience of officers being assaulted when on duty, Steve said: “I have been assaulted countless times and, to go back to when I first started as a new officer in 1995, there was an ethos then that it was part of the job.

“It was in the early 2000s I think and, there was a court case where a judge basically reaffirmed that it was part the job to get assaulted but it never felt right because everyone has a right to go to work and to be treated properly.”

He added: “It’s the minority of the public that cause these assaults on officers and it does leave lasting effects on police officers.”