Category Archives: Scotland

Legal, Policing, Scotland, Society

Nine police officers are attacked on duty each day

POLICE SCOTLAND

NEW figures published show that police officers were subjected to more than 800 assaults over the course of just three months.

An average of more than nine assaults were inflicted every day on serving officers during the first quarter of this year.

During this period, 860 attacks were committed, with an average of five working days lost for every assault.

This was slightly down from the 1,031 over the same time period in 2020-21, which was a significant rise from 764 assaults in 2019-20.

Injuries such as stabbings with needles doubled in 2020-21, and injuries during an arrest rose by 12.5 per cent.

In 1919 Magazine, the policing magazine, which focuses on Scotland’s justice and social affairs, an experienced Police Scotland officer said: “The main underlying cause of violence against police is lack of police officers. You’re lucky if you’re sending two cops to go to a call where historically there might have been four, five, six in two or three cars.”

In the first quarter of the year there were five cases of officers being injured by needles.

The most common injuries were bruising and inflammation with 233 cases, followed by 222 cases of exposure to a hazardous substance, and 133 reports of a cut or laceration.

Last year, a thug was jailed after choking an officer and rendering him unconscious. Colleagues feared the officer had been killed after the assailant attacked him at a disturbance in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire. A total of 225 working days were lost over the three-month period. This is in comparison to 910 days lost due to potential or confirmed exposure to Covid.

The statistics come from a health and safety report, sent to the Scottish Police Authority’s People’s Committee last month. This report highlights a series of incidents.

It includes a case of an officer attending a violent domestic incident in Glasgow where a man was brandishing a knife close to paramedics. He swung the knife at officers when they tried to engage with him and struck one on the chest.

The report raised the “continued increase in police officer and police staff assaults” as an area of “concern”.

A senior police officer said: “Officers and staff work with dedication and a commitment to helping people, and violence against them is deplorable and unacceptable.

“It is simply not part of the job, and it will not be tolerated.

“It causes physical and psychological harm to dedicated public servants and there is also a cost to the public purse through days lost to ill-health or personal injury claims.”

Those who carry out serious attacks on police officers can face up to life imprisonment under common law offences.

There are also specific offences relating to police assaults in the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act and Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act.

The Scottish Government said: “No one should be the victim of abuse or violence at work, and assaults on police officers are completely unacceptable.

“The health and safety of police officers is a matter for the chief constable, who has made a commitment for 2021/22 that he will continue to take action to reduce the impact on officers and staff of violence in all its forms.”

Standard
Government, Justice, Policing, Scotland, Society

Justice has been forgotten, say furious police

POLICE SCOTLAND

OFFICERS have warned that justice has been “largely forgotten” during the pandemic in a bombshell report on the police service.

The Scottish Police Federation (SPF) insists victims are “of lesser importance” than criminals, with a seven-year backlog meaning many cases will not come to court. The federation represents officers up to and including the rank of chief inspector, some 98% of the force.

The blistering attack has been made by frontline officers in a written submission to Holyrood’s justice committee.

Critics accused the SNP Government of a “soft-touch approach to justice”.

Emergency laws were brought in last year cracking down on travel and large house parties to limit the spread of coronavirus. But the federation warns the move simply “stoked up tensions”, while the impact of the pandemic meant suspects have evaded justice.

In the damning submission, published within the last few days, general secretary Calum Steele said: “The administration of justice has largely been forgotten about during this pandemic. Prisoners were released, suspects for serious offences were rarely kept in custody, those who assaulted police officers were often home in their beds before the officers themselves finished work.

“Politicians played fast and loose with their language, stoking up tensions on issues like mass gatherings, in the full knowledge this made the policing of such events more challenging.

“Victims of crime were considered of lesser importance than the perpetrators of crime in the policies that fell from the Covid response.”

Criticising Police Scotland, he said: “Despite a number of internal warnings before the pandemic was declared, the service failed to respond timeously. The internal bureaucracy and turgid decision-making meant the police service was on the back foot.”

Police officers had been “unnecessarily exposed to enhanced risk of contracting the virus as a direct result of their duties.”

He added that emergency laws brought in to limit social contact during the first wave were “opaque and often unenforceable”. He said: “Police officers have throughout this pandemic felt neglected and unsupported by government.”

There is no doubt, that police officers and staff have given unstinting public service during the pandemic. This bombshell submission has openly revealed the burden they have carried throughout Covid.

However, a Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We do not recognise, and disagree with, much of the content of this submission [by the Scottish Police Federation]. Public trust and confidence in policing has remained strong throughout the pandemic as officers and staff stepped forward with commitment and professionalism to tackle the spread of coronavirus.”

The Scottish Government said: “No one should be the victim of abuse or violence at work. Assaults on police officers are despicable and the Scottish Government fully supports courts having their current extensive powers to deal robustly with perpetrators.”

Standard
Government, Policing, Scotland, Society

View of policing is ‘old-fashioned’

POLICE SCOTLAND

A POLICE watchdog has said the idea that policing is solely about law enforcement is “old-fashioned”.

HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland Gill Imery said maintaining the view that the job of police officers was confined to catching criminals was a “stunted” belief.

She has spoken out amid concern over the expanding range of duties officers have beyond enforcing the law, such as administering naloxone to save overdosing drug addicts.

However, the comments come following an explosion in rape cases and an increase in violent offending, with prosecutors admitting there is “absolutely no sign” of a sustained fall in serious crime.

Speaking at a recent meeting of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), Mrs Imery said: “It’s an old-fashioned and a stunted view of policing to think that it is limited to law enforcement.

“Police Scotland have done a huge amount to demonstrate a much wider responsibility of policing – a much wider desire to impact in a positive way on people’s life chances and life choices.”

Backing the use of naloxone by officers to treat overdosing addicts, Mrs Imery said: “I think it is hugely positive on the part of Police Scotland to take that step to prevent harm and ultimately loss of life, which I think is absolutely integral to the purpose of police constables.”

In July it emerged that police administered an anti-overdose treatment to one person a week on average during the first three months of carrying the therapy. Officers in Falkirk, Dundee and Glasgow East had been equipped with naloxone since March 1 as part of a six-month pilot project.

The move came amid a rise in drug deaths to record levels, with Scotland having the worst drug-related facilities in the EU.

Police Scotland said earlier this year that drug related crime is to be considered a public health problem as the force vowed to “drive national improvements in health and wellbeing”.

It announced a partnership with government health quango Public Health Scotland (PHS) in a bid to prevent offending by working with the NHS and others to tackle poor health, “health inequality” and other issues.

Police in Scotland are also keen to adopt a “trauma-informed” approach – taking into account the welfare of suspects and criminals.

Some police officers have criticised this approach, with one officer saying the “hypothesis that reducing trauma prevents crime isn’t backed up by credible evidence” – and condemned the strategy as “motherhood and apple pie”.

Last month, figures showed the number of rapes reported to police had risen by nearly 35 per cent in a year, as sex crime soared to the highest level for six years.

Violent offending overall shot up by nearly 13 per cent in the past year, according to Police Scotland.

Prosecutors have admitted there is “absolutely no sign” of a sustained fall in serious crime. The Scottish Government claims Scotland is becoming safer.

David Hamilton, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, representing rank and file officers, said: “I don’t think anyone disagrees with Gill Imery that policing is and should be about more than just law enforcement, but it remains our primary function.

“As the service of last resort, we are increasingly having to pick up where others have failed, and the danger is that we commit or overstretch ourselves filling those gaps.

“Officers are concerned that we are already having to fulfil additional roles such as educators, paramedics, social workers and mental health nurses.”

TWO

. Half of police officers in Scotland want to be issued with a firearm whilst on duty

MORE than half of Scotland’s police officers want to be issued with a handgun as part of their safety equipment, a survey has indicated.

In the past three months, 22 per cent of officers have been the victim of assault while on duty, prompting calls for extra measures to ensure their protection.

A survey carried out by the Scottish Police Federation has found that 53 per cent of Police Scotland rank and file would like access to a handgun.

A further 7 per cent of officers said they would like to be trained to use the weapon in case it was necessary.

Of the nearly 1,700 questioned, 47 per cent said they did not want to carry handguns and 37 per cent indicated they would not like to be trained in their use.

However, 84 per cent said they would be happy to carry Tasers.

Scottish Police Federation chairman David Hamilton said: “This demonstrates not just the frequency of attacks but the gravity of them, too.

“Officers consider knives to be the greatest risk to them and firearms are the appropriate last defence to being attacked by such lethal weapons.”

A spokesperson for Gun Control Network said that unless there was a change in (policing) culture society would become too much like America where guns are drawn for any reason – and that is not the way policing has been conducted in the UK. Insisting that it certainly wouldn’t protect the public any more, the Network says that the implications are much wider than what it means to an individual officer on duty.

In 2018, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) condemned an action by Police Scotland which saw officers point guns at 11 people during an “unwarranted” operation.

The force later apologised to eight people – including two women who were strip-searched. In 2016, shoppers in Dingwall, Ross-shire, spoke of their shock when they saw four officers armed with handguns sitting down to breakfast in a café.

The force’s Assistant Chief Constable Mark Williams said: “There are no plans to move away from being an unarmed service which has an armed capability.

“Being assaulted should never be part of the job and tackling the concerning trend of increasing assaults on officers and staff is a priority. The Chief Constable has underlined his commitment to achieving this goal by providing people with the tools they need to do their jobs.

“Recently, we have improved our infrastructure to support an enhanced roll-out of Taser and work is under way to uplift the number of Taser-trained officers by 1,500 over the next three years.”

Standard