Ross Kemp on patrol with the armed police

TIME for hardman Ross Kemp to pull on his bulletproof vest again as he joins armed officers on the frontlines of British crime. As he heads out with officers who have experienced being confronted with lethal weapons, it raises the issue of whether police at any level can be left unarmed today.

First he sees how two unarmed officers deal with a violent man who is threatening them with a kitchen knife, revisiting the scene with two constables, Alex and Debbie, of Northamptonshire Police.

Debbie says : “I honestly thought that Alex was going to be killed.”

Later Ross goes out with a covert mobile armed support surveillance team on the hunt for a suspect with a gun in the West Midlands, but the man is aggressive when the team tries to arrest him.

Ross also visits a counterterror police training base for the first time – designed to instil militar y-style tactics into everyday police officers.

Officers use explosives to gain access to a building and he acts as a hostage in a practice raid.

Before they burst in using stun grenades, Ross says : “It’s actually tense doing this, I mean I know what’s about to happen. Can you imagine what, in a real hostage situation, they’d actually feel?”

Ross also interviews several officers, all with different views on whether or not police should be armed.

One says : “The number of incidents that we’re now seeing involving gang violence, they’re carrying guns and yet we’re still deploying with a small can of pepper spray and a baton.”