THUGS WHO ATTACK POLICE
THESE figures are shocking and reinforce exactly why the Police Federation campaigned so hard to get the law changed to ensure that those who choose to assault police officers are appropriately dealt with by the courts.
Through our Protect the Protectors campaign, last November we secured a change in the law to make assaulting a police officer – or any emergency service worker – a specific offence carrying a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison.
Assaulting a police officer is completely unacceptable and as a society we must make it clear we will not tolerate this type of behaviour – especially when we see the same offenders coming in front of the courts for repeatedly attacking officers.
We now have tougher legislation and magistrates and judges must use their full sentencing powers to provide the deterrent and punitive effect the law was intended to have.
The message from the courts needs to be crystal clear, if you assault a police officer you will go to prison.
A slap on the wrist just doesn’t cut it and if there are not enough prison spaces then build more prisons.
THOUSANDS of thugs who assaulted the police were allowed to walk free from court despite being convicted of at least one previous attack on an officer.
Ministry of Justice (MOJ) figures show that last year 3,285 people were not jailed even though they had been convicted of attacking officers while having previous convictions for the same type of offence.
Seven people avoided prison for this crime despite having 10 or more convictions for assaulting officers. There were 91 people with five or more previous convictions who still did not go to jail.
The figures come a year after the Police Federation Protect the Protectors campaign managed to double the maximum sentence for assault on a police officer, or other emergency workers, from six months to a year with an unlimited fine.
However, data from the MOJ reveals only around one in 10 people convicted of assaulting a police officer end up with a jail sentence.
In September Peter Mcleod, 42, avoided a jail term for an attack on a policeman, despite it being his third similar assault. Mcleod, from Sunderland, told PC Andrew Jackson he would “chop him up with an axe” before punching him in the face during the assault in Gateshead.
Despite having previously attacked two other officers Mcleod was handed a 16-week suspended sentence and ordered to pay his victim £150 compensation.
In another case, a woman punched a police officer in the face just three days after completing a community order sentence for previous attacks on police.
Officers were called to a disturbance at a property in Norwich last month, where Joanne Utting, 47, and a man were both found with minor injuries, Norwich Magistrates Court heard.
Utting, who was drinking rum, was asked to sit down but, instead, she punched one officer in the face.
The court heard she had previous convictions for battery and assaulting officers from 2018. She is awaiting sentence.
Police are also upset about how other offenders are treated by the courts and last week slammed the sentence of Jamie Glover, 31, who avoided jail after spitting at a British Transport Police officer while being arrested outside York station in October.
Glover pleaded guilty to being drunk