15 police officers in South Yorkshire assaulted every week

The Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, revealed the scale of the abuse officers face and described the number of assaults logged each week as ‘staggering’ and ‘appalling’.

Nationally, there were 36,969 assaults on police officers last year - a 20 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

That figure equates to 720 assaults a week, 101 a day or four every hour.

A total of 11,235 officers were attacked.

Steve Kent, chairman of the South Yorkshire branch of the Police Federation, said the increasing number of incidents suggests officers are now more willing to report attacks than previously.

But he said courts must ‘protect the protectors’ and hand out harsher sentences.

“Frustratingly, we are hearing of officers who get assaulted with injury or spat at and the culprits are getting away without a custodial sentence – and that can’t be right. We must properly protect the protectors.

“What I want to focus on is assaults that involve injury or involve spitting or involve that kind of seriousness. They are the ones that need to have a mandatory jail sentence. That is the only way we’re going to crack this.

“I think it’s very difficult to articulate that every assault, regardless of how bad, should end up in prison. But if we focus on assaults with injury, then a prison sentence for the perpetrator is the way to deal with it and it’s the only way to deal with it as far as I’m concerned.”

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