Praise for police officers from TV Presenter Nick Knowles

TV presenter Nick Knowles has been defending the police from attacks in the media and outlining the challenges the country’s officers currently face.

“I don’t know why we’ve got this thing in this country where we have to hammer the police,” the DIY SOS host told millions of people.

He spoke to ITV’s Good Morning Britain about the difficult conditions police officers were working under during the coronavirus pandemic and some recent incidents they’ve dealt with – including a police van having its brake lines cut, an officer being headbutted and police cars being set on fire.

Nick said: “There’s 150,000 [police officers] in England, [Northern] Ireland, Scotland and Wales who are trying to keep over 65 million of us at home while doing all their normal jobs as well.

“You can’t keep two metres away from someone when you’re arresting them. They don’t have the safety options that we all have.

“The Government have come up with rules at short notice, out of necessity. They’ve then been handed on to our police who have to go out and implement them in the best way that they possibly can, while doing all the other things as well, because crime hasn’t stopped.”

Nick said that police officers were “getting absolutely hammered in the press and on the TV news”.

He continued: “I don’t know why we’ve got this thing in this country where we have to hammer the police. They’re protecting us, but they’re also protecting the NHS. The NHS really want the police to be out there, trying to keep people in their homes, trying to protect them.”

Nick presents the BBC show Close Calls: On Camera, which shows the moments when everyday lives turn to disaster, and how the emergency services helped them. A long-term advocate of the emergency services, from 2009 to 2013 Nick presented Real Rescues and currently hosts DIY SOS.