Police Officer Safety

Rebecca Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

I welcome this debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on her campaign to protect the protectors.

For the past year I have taken part in the police service parliamentary scheme, which I would wholeheartedly recommend to all Members of Parliament. It has given me a unique window on the world of everyday life in the police force and the tasks that the police have to undertake on our behalf. I have shadowed various departments in Essex police and seen the incredible work that members of our police service do daily, the challenges and dangers they face, and the frankly astonishing levels of commitment to public service they show. I put on the record my thanks to Essex police for helping me take up that opportunity.

Many of the brave men and women in our police recognise that we are in a challenging period for policing. At a time when the Government are asking them to do more for less, they have absolutely risen to the challenge. Front-line officers put their own safety at risk every day in order to keep people like ourselves safe. I have heard first-hand accounts of officers being punched, kicked, spat at and even bitten, not to mention receiving verbal threats.

Spitting has already been discussed. Although it is often not seen as causing physical harm, not only is it truly disgusting but, as has been mentioned, there are real health risks involved. I would like to have a wider debate on spit hoods. If anyone feels squeamish about them I encourage them to put themselves in the position of an officer being spat at.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I recently went out on a ride-along with officers from Essex police. I witnessed a suspect who was being restrained attempting to spit at a police officer. It was a really ugly thing to see. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must look more seriously at the option of spit hoods, because if we really want to protect our police officers we need to do something concrete?

[Rebecca Harris]

Absolutely unquestionably—spitting is a revolting thing to do. Often the last resort for someone being arrested is to try to spit, out of spite.

We have already heard about the around 23,000 assaults on police officers across the country. I was shocked to learn that there were just under 700 assaults in Essex alone. However, many more go unreported, sometimes because officers feel the offence is so commonplace it will not be pursued and, more worryingly, that the sentence will perhaps not reflect the assault’s effect on the officer.

The innovation of body-cams has been very effective in its roll-out in Essex. The cameras have reduced assaults on officers and increased the possibility of prosecutions. But they do not in themselves deal with the inconsistency on reporting, sentencing or prosecution. I spoke to the chair of the Essex branch of the Police Federation about officer experience post assault. What I heard was largely very positive with regard to how the force itself supports its officers. However, the chair stressed again and again that there were incidents where the psychological effect on the victim of an attack was not taken into account in sentencing, whereas it would be for many other crimes.

It is right that the courts, through the independence of the judiciary, have discretion to take into account the circumstances of each case in determining the appropriate sentence, but in cases of assaults on officers, courts really need to consider the implications for the officer’s mental health. When a sentence is very low or non-existent, there is further psychological damage to the officer involved; they feel undervalued, unappreciated and not paid the respect they deserve for putting their lives on the line for us on a daily basis. That is not good enough. We must protect the very people who do so much to keep us safe. It must be clear that any attack on a police officer will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The independent Sentencing Council produced the guidelines; it is important it recognises how seriously the public feel about attacks on serving police officers.

We should not fall into seeing attacks on police officers as a hazard of the job or as in some way so everyday an occurrence that they are less significant than assaults on members of the public. I urge everyone to take the contrary view: that such attacks ought to be judged more severely, as police officers deserve our protection and support in return. That point must be repeatedly stressed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Anecdotally, we know that there are concerns about the wide variation around the country in the approach taken by the CPS towards assaults on officers. The message needs to go out to the CPS loud and clear that assaults on police must be charged at the most appropriate gradation, and that that must be consistently applied across the country. Likewise, I would like the message to go to the judiciary that they must understand that we want the police to have the full support of the law behind them.

I warmly welcome the Minister’s announcement that police forces will be required to record offences against officers properly as part of their crime statistics. Our police service is absolutely second to none in the world, which is why they need support from us that is second to none.