Police back-up

Priti Patel writes on this page that she was appalled and sickened by the murder of Pc Andrew Harper. There’s not a lot the Government can do in legislative terms between now and a likely general election, but the new Home Secretary is correct to invest in extra police officers and to expand stop and search – and, in light of recent attacks on officers, right also to accelerate plans to establish a Police Covenant and to call on the courts to crack down on these alarming assaults.

She makes these pledges on the same day that we publish a most astonishing statistic: the average sentence for someone jailed for the specific offence of assaulting a police officer is just 2.2 months. The maximum possible sentence is only six months. This is an insult to the police and also very dangerous for the public. It’s the custom in this country that we don’t over-arm police and we encourage them to defuse, rather than confront – all on the understanding that the law against assaulting an officer is strong enough to dissuade anyone from doing it. If the law is weak, however, the police will lose their authority, criminals will become ever more violent, and order will break down.

It is happening before our very eyes. Mr Martin Griffiths, lead trauma surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, tells us “we routinely see people with more than half a dozen stab wounds”, suggesting that the UK is “moving towards collective violence”. He has even treated a five-year-old who had been shot. All this proves that Ms Patel’s reforms are necessary and the Government is on the appropriate track. Britain’s police need to know that the public, politicians and courts are firmly on their side.