Stressed police in gangland war zone get lessons in ‘mindfulness’

A police force hit with a spate of gangland shootings has become the UK’s first to offer meditation lessons to help stressed officers cope.

The ‘mindfulness’ sessions are being held for officers in Salford, where more than 50 tit-for-tat shootings have taken place in a year.

The stress has seen sickness rates across Greater Manchester police soar, with 30,700 working days lost due to illness at a cost of around £17million a year, based on the average salary of a constable.

psychological illness – including stress, anxiety and depression – now accounts for nearly a third of all sickness absence.

Bosses hope the lunchtime mindfulness sessions will help improve the force’s mental health, and so lower the amount of time off needed. currently around 460 officers are off due to illness at any one time.

The Buddhist practice encourages people to focus on the present rather than the past or the future. So far 250 police officers and back-office staff at pendleton police station, Salford, have taken part in the sessions, which are run by volunteers. They involve Tibetan chimes being sounded as the officers go through meditations, concentrating on breathing and deep relaxation.

While some officers are sceptical, others say the sessions are useful. Some have found them so relaxing they have fallen asleep.

Since April 2014 there have been 88 firearms discharges recorded in Greater Manchester.

of those, 55 have taken place in the 12 months to April this year – the result of gangland feuds in Salford following the machine gun murder of gangster ‘Mr Big’ paul Massey last July.

Three people have died and 17 were injured – up from 11 between April 2014 and April last year. They include seven-year- old christian Hickey, who was shot in both legs alongside his mother, Jayne, 29, at their front door last october.

prior to his retirement last year, former Greater Manchester chief constable Sir peter Fahy admitted he had undergone counselling as he struggled to cope in the top job – and that he had also become a mindfulness enthusiast.

He encouraged efforts to improve the mental health of the force, including the provision of free indian head massages at the force’s Sedgley park training school to help officers stay calm.

one experienced officer told the Manchester evening News: ‘The job’s getting harder, there are less people and there’s more accounta- bility. people used to dismiss this kind of stuff and blame it on a bad back. To be fair to Sir peter, he broke all that. if it helps people, it’s got to be worth it.’

chief Superintendent Zoe Sheard said: ‘Mental health is as important to a police officer as physical health. We want them to go out and deal with conflict, but those same people will also have to deal with victims too – with compassion and often in the same incident.

‘Mindfulness is about keeping them fit for each role. There’s nothing mystical in this – it’s just practical.’

THe number of police officers taking days off sick with stress has rocketed by 58 per cent in the last two years – with one in every 15 cops in Britain affected.

Between April 2013 and March 2014, 5,460 people from the 43 forces in england and Wales took time off for stress. The following year, this rose by 15 per cent to 6,278.

But figures revealed today show an astonishing 8,632 officers took time off with ‘stress, depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder’ from April 2015 to March this year – up 38 per cent from last year and 58 per cent from 2013/14.

With an average of 96 days off per person, it amounted to just under 830,000 sick days.