Shocking 20 Hampshire officers assaulted five times in the past year

A SHOCKING 20 police officers at Hampshire Constabulary have been assaulted five times in the last year, the Federation has revealed.

The location where officers are most likely to be attacked on duty is Southampton, followed by Portsmouth. And racially aggravated assaults on police officers have skyrocketed by 60 per cent, the figures show.

Hampshire Constabulary has one of the best data recording systems in the country, when it comes to assaults on duty, Zoë Wakefield, Hampshire Police Federation chair said.

She said: “We’ve got so much data. I can tell you who the most assaulted officer in Hampshire is. I can tell you which teams are the most assaulted. For example, in Southampton, 4 out of the 5 response teams feature highly on the number of assaults, but that one team is much, much lower, so we’re now doing some work to look at why and asking what the difference is between those teams.

“Is it to do with the experience of officers on those teams? Is it to do with who works the hardest? Is it to do with experience and officer safety training? So we’re looking at all the reasons why we’ve got that anomaly there.

“We have so much data. Even goes down to the method of assault. Was it a weapon, was it spitting, was it a punch, was it a kick.”

Zoë was speaking after a new APP was launched allowing police forces to record all incidents of assault against officers and staff in a consistent way.

The new APP, developed by the National Police Wellbeing Service will allow them to  capture the relevant details quickly and ensure consistency in the data recorded.

Assaults data will still be owned and managed at force level, and forces will still lead the local response to incidents following the Op Hampshire process, ensuring officers and staff are supported and relevant actions are taken. But it will provide a deeper understanding of the true levels of violence used against officers and staff and bring the data together to provide a national overview.

Chief Inspector Dave Brewster, Op Hampshire Coordinator for the NPWS said; “This is a really significant step in our journey in supporting forces with adoption of Operation Hampshire and providing the tools they need to be able to accurately and consistently record incidents of assaults on their officers and staff.”