Police Dogs and Horses

Debate between Holly Lynch and Jason McCartney

Monday 14th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

May I say how pleased I am that you are chairing this important debate, Mr Crausby? I thank the Petitions Committee for allocating time to discuss this issue in Westminster Hall, and in particular the hon. Member for Northampton South (David Mackintosh) for doing such a good job of setting out the principles underpinning the debate.

As we have heard, people all over the country have been struck by the story of police dog Finn and his handler, PC Dave Wardell, with the petition reaching more than 100,000 signatures in just 10 days. I will heed your advice, Mr Crausby, and not say any more about that case, but let me take this opportunity to wish Finn and PC Wardell all the best on their road to recovery. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

I also thank the “Finn’s Law” campaign team, who have harnessed the sense of injustice about what happened to Finn and turned it into positive action, with a view to delivering the change that we would all like to see. I pay tribute to some of the senior officers in West Yorkshire police who have gone over and above what might have been expected to lend their support to the “Finn’s Law” campaign. If people have not already seen the video of Chief Inspector Aidy Waugh and Chief Superintendents Tim Kingsman and Mabs Hussain trying and failing to evade a police dog, all in the name of raising awareness about Finn’s law, I promise them that it is well worth a watch and even a retweet.

Spending time with West Yorkshire police in my constituency over the summer, I have met some incredibly dedicated people, yet the workload of our police forces is becoming increasingly complicated. In West Yorkshire since 2010, we have lost 1,200 police officers—a 20% reduction in the force—and increasingly officers are asked to respond to 999 calls on their own. I witnessed an incident that quickly escalated, leaving an officer surrounded following a routine attempt to stop a vehicle. With the Police Federation, I started the “Protect the Protectors” campaign and began raising police officer safety in the Chamber, but the work of the “Finn’s Law” campaign reminded me that it is not just police officers but our hard-working police horses and dogs that are exposed to risk.

There are 1,900 police dogs in the UK: 781 specialist dogs and 1,119 general purpose dogs carrying out tasks that are often simply beyond their human counterparts. In West Yorkshire fairly recently, two police cars were rammed by a vehicle and the driver ran off, evading arrest. Police dog Tia was able to track the offender and found his discarded hat; from that hat, a DNA sample was obtained and matched and the suspect identified. Police dog Ty tracked and located an elderly lady with dementia who had got lost in freezing weather. Officers were adamant that had Ty not located her, she would not have lasted much longer, exposed to the harsh weather conditions.

Police officers tell us that dogs are one of the most effective ways of managing some very difficult situations, with officers’ only concern being that not enough dogs are available. Police dog Buzz, a firearms support dog, recently detained a distressed male who was threatening the public with a large knife. He was able to bring the incident to a conclusion thanks to the advanced training that police dogs go through, and thankfully with no harm to himself.

Police horses are also invaluable, yet six were injured during last year’s million mask march and an irate football fan was sentenced to a year in prison in 2013 for punching West Yorkshire police horse Bud in the face before being detained by officers.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I praise the hon. Lady for her work on the “Protect the Protectors” campaign. She is giving very good examples. Police dogs and horses are an integral part of the policing team, and introducing exemplary punishments for those who show ill will and cause harm, damage and perhaps even death to police horses and dogs will give confidence to the police officers who are working as a team with their police dogs and horses.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is absolutely right: offering that protection to dogs will lend further support to handlers and to their colleagues more widely.

I did not know until I was made aware by the “Finn’s Law” campaign that the only mechanism for charging someone who assaults or kills a police dog or horse is in section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Conviction carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison. Alternatively, in the most serious cases, an offender can be charged with criminal damage. Kent Police Federation tweeted me yesterday and summed the position up perfectly. It said that

“the Finn’s law campaign isn’t about the law treating Police Dogs the same as cops, but it is about treating them better than a broken window.”

I understand that a constructive meeting has already taken place between the campaign team and the Policing Minister, which is encouraging, but I think the Minister already knows my view: police officers and police animals alike deserve the full backing of the justice system, and tough sentences must play a role in deterring anyone who thinks that it is acceptable to assault either a police officer or a police animal—quite often it is both. That simply must not be tolerated.

Although I welcome the recent progress made, as with assaults on police officers it has been difficult to establish the scale of the problem of assaults on police animals because of a lack of official statistics. That is partly due to the difficulties of getting an offence to court and securing a conviction, as we have heard. The evidence required to secure either an animal welfare or a criminal damage conviction has to clear such a high threshold that offences are, sadly, going unpunished. To prove criminal damage, it has to be shown that property—a dog or horse in this instance—has been deliberately or recklessly broken, permanently or temporarily. Bruises and cuts resulting from kicks or punches are almost impossible to demonstrate under an animal’s fur. Similar challenges apply under the Animal Welfare Act: it would need to be proved that an offender inflicted “unnecessary suffering” on an animal and did so deliberately. If an offender claimed that a kick to a police dog’s head was an involuntary reaction to being scared, for example, a prosecution would be difficult to secure.

The average cost of the initial training of a police dog is about £20,000, and the lifetime cost, including vets’ bills, food and kennelling, is about £50,000. That is a significant investment on the part of a police force, but it makes that investment because police dogs are a highly trained asset and incredibly effective at what they do. However, precisely because of what they do, they are exposed to heightened and very different risks from other animals, and I agree with the “Finn’s Law” campaign that that should be reflected in the laws that protect them.

Police Officer Safety

Debate between Holly Lynch and Jason McCartney

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We see police forces having to pick up the slack where there have been cuts to other agencies—agencies that should be taking a lead in dealing with some of these quite difficult social problems. I will come to how many vulnerable people were missing when I did my shift with West Yorkshire police and the impact that had on how many officers were available to respond to 999 calls.

To return to the statistics, I am asking the Home Office to work with police forces to standardise the process of collecting that information. Quite simply, if an officer is assaulted, in any force at any time, let us record it. Assaults on officers must be the subject of robust investigations. While officers need to play their part in that and follow up by reporting instances where they have been the victim of an assault, I also appreciate that they will not report injuries unless they have the confidence that those involved will be investigated and prosecuted appropriately.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising this issue on behalf of West Yorkshire police, our local force. Will she join me in welcoming the recruitment of an extra 300 officers in West Yorkshire? Does she also agree that we need some exemplary sentences as a deterrent, so that the police can have the assurance of knowing that anyone who perpetrates violence against a police officer or PCSO will receive a harsher sentence?

[Holly Lynch]

Of course, sentencing plays a big part in deterring those contemplating assault on a police officer. I very much welcome that recruitment drive, but we have seen the loss of 1,200 officers in West Yorkshire, so the faster those new boots are on the ground, the better.

I welcome the work of the Police Federation’s John Apter in Hampshire, which has been an effective means of establishing best practice. I would encourage all forces to consider rolling out similar schemes for recording and investigating assaults on officers. Police officers who are assaulted deserve the full backing of the justice system, as the hon. Gentleman has just said. Since my shift with West Yorkshire police, I have become aware of at least five more assaults on officers in my constituency in the days that followed and have been made aware of some absolutely horrific incidents reported to me by serving officers all over the country—indeed, we have already heard many more today. What has shocked me, and what thoroughly depresses police officers, is that sentences handed down to offenders for assaulting the police often fail to reflect the seriousness of the crime or, more crucially, serve as a deterrent.