Kent chief constable Alan Pughsley says attacks on officers are 'abhorrent'

Chief constable Alan Pughsley supports harsher sentences for people who attack 999 staff

Kent's chief constable has described as "abhorrent and totally unacceptable" the number of attacks on his officers.

Alan Pughsley said in the last two years there had been 3,225 assaults, equivalent to four a day.

He said the attacks "range from spitting, biting, punching, kicking and head butting", with more than 60 including racist abuse.

"These are mums, dads, sons, daughters and I'll do everything I can to protect them," he told BBC Radio Kent.

"The officers are doing a brilliant, brave, wonderful thing, trying to keep people safe, and then there are a small group of violent individuals who think it's OK to assault my officers and it simply is not."

The number of assaults were behind his decision to make Tasers available to all front-line officers who want them.

He said: "I decided five or six years ago, when assaults started increasing dramatically, that these people have to protect themselves to protect the public.

"So after a rigorous three-day test, if my front-line officer wants to carry a Taser, then in Kent they carry a Taser."

'Utterly unacceptable'

Mr Pughsley said he was particularly alarmed that 66 of the incidents involved racist abuse towards his officers.

"It's as bad as the assault - completely and utterly unacceptable and we do charge with hate crime offences if people do that towards my officers. Hate crime is one of our very focused priorities and quite rightly so."

He said he supports a proposal in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to increase the sentence for assaulting an emergency worker from one to two years.

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