Police need back-up

AN assault on a police officer is an attack on wider society.

The police are all that stands between the law-abiding and the feral and they act with the public’s imprimatur. To strike them is to strike us.

Scotland was shocked by our story yesterday which told how two police officers, one a woman, were battered to the ground in a street in daylight as jeering onlookers filmed the horror on smartphones. The perpetrator was given a mere slap on the wrist in court.

Now we report claims of a troubling trend within the justice system to downgrade police assaults, to treat them as almost ‘part of the job’.

Idiots filming a violent assault are a symptom of a coarsening of society but we must not allow such a degradation to impact on the system the police serve.

So-called plea bargaining – where criminals agree to admit guilt on some charges in exchange for the dropping of others – may well help keep courts ticking over.

But we should be wary of anything that risks normalising attacks on police.

The rank-and-file of Police Scotland risk life and limb on every 999 call they attend. The message must go out that the public and the courts back them to the hilt.

And equally, the violent thugs who think nothing of attacking the police need to learn that society will inflict severe penalties on those who attack our guardians.