Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Covid-19 hit policing hard
THE continued Covid response is still having a “significant impact” for police in Tayside, the force’s new commander for the region has said.
Speaking to the Tele, Chief Superintendent Phil Davison said the pandemic continued to impact policing in many ways across Dundee, Angus and Perth and Kinross.
Mr Davison took on the top role in Tayside earlier this year, overseeing policing across Tayside after his predecessor, Andrew Todd, retired.
In an interview with the Tele, he said that coronavirus was continuing to have a “significant impact” on policing, with opportunists finding new ways to commit crime.
Speaking as Omicron caused Covid-19 case numbers in Scotland to rise significantly, Mr Davison said the extended challenge of the virus was creating new issues for police to tackle.
“The pandemic period has been going on for quite some time now, it has been two years of real challenge.
“Challenging on an individual level, remembering that officers and staff that work for the service are individually affected the same as everybody else.
“But (it is also a) challenge across the system and across communities it has created real issues that we’ve had to tackle in different ways.
“The lockdowns, for example, created criminal opportunists looking into additional means of committing crimes, more into cyberspace than before,” he said.
“The effort of our staff throughout I have been really proud of because it has been really challenging. It has been really, really hard,” he added.
He admitted many in the force were tired as the pressure of responding to the pandemic continued.
“The reality is, across all of our communities, people are getting to the point of exhaustion.”
The senior officer also said court backlogs were having a knock-on impact on officers and victims who are waiting for justice.
The pandemic forced courts to delay many cases and Scotland’s top prosecutor has said the backlog could take “multiple years” to clear.
It is understood there are more than 800 cases across Scotland awaiting trial in the High Court, which deals with the most serious offences.
Mr Davison said that as well as a “traumatic” impact for victims, the backlog was also hitting officers.
“I think it’s fair to say that the pandemic has had a significant impact on the justice system as whole.
The closure of courts for a lengthy period of time has an impact direct to victims, and that can be traumatic
“For officers, it’s a backlog of cases that then requires potential court appearances and for policing as well, is the management of perpetrators pending trial.
“There has been an impact, but it’s an impact that’s faced nationally,” he said.
But in responding to the new challenges posed by Covid-19, Mr Davison said Police Scotland had also found new ways of working that could be kept in place after the pandemic is over.
“There have been loads of process changes and technology improvements that have been accelerated because of the pandemic,” he said.
Mr Davison said the pandemic also brought about a greater number of “hidden harms” behind closed doors which meant different agencies had to collaborate.
He also highlighted increased policing measures in cyberspace, both in terms of investigating crime online and undertaking preventative work.
“We’ve shown that as a collective when thrown together in a point of crisis, that communities and people can pull together really strongly.
“I think if we can come out of this and capture that there are real opportunities.”