Attacks on judges would be treated differently claims Norfolk Police Fed Chair

Andy Symonds, Norfolk Police Federation Chairman, says his colleagues feel "let down by the court system" after a teenager who knocked out a police officer and then bragged about it was given a suspended sentence.

19-year-old Calvin Garwe told officers what he had done was "cool".

"If they were to put themselves in the position of a police officer and they were attacked while at work. I'm pretty confident the person who attacked the Magistrate or Judge would be behind bars"

Andy went one step further and told us he believes that if the shoe was on the other foot, and it were Judges and Magistrates being assaulted, then much tougher sentences would be handed out.

Statistics show assaults against Norfolk officers are on the rise. Government figures show 659 officers were assaulted in 2019/20 compared to 582 in 2018/19.

Of the 659 assaults carried out in the past year 127 left Norfolk Police officers with an injury of some sort. Nationally more than 30,000 officers were attacked, an increase of 3% on 2018/19.

Andy said “This offender had a list of previous convictions and clearly does not care about the laws of this country which culminated with him knocking out my colleague. It is reported that the judge stated that police officers were “out there to protect people, to protect members of the public and people like you who attack them should expect custodial sentences”.

“But he told the offender he was going to give him “one last chance” and imposed a sentence of six months in a young offenders’ institution suspended for two years. He was ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work, 25 days rehabilitation activity and disqualified him from driving for 18 months.

"I'm visiting officers in hospital with broken bones, split eyes...bruising, fractured eye sockets."

The Government are currently consulting on doubling the sentence for those who assault police officers to two years.

It’s something Andy is keen to see happen.

He added: “We have to get to a position in which these would-be violent offenders think twice about assaulting officers as they know that in all likelihood they will be sent to prison.

“We have to appropriately charge and end the ‘plea bargaining’ and CPS accepting a lesser charge for a guilty plea.”

Assaults on officers can have a negative impact on their mental health, careers and family lives Andy said.

"I'm dealing with police officers that have been seriously assaulted that have had to leave the police service because of the seriousness of their injuries. I'm visiting officers in hospital with broken bones, split eyes...bruising, fractured eye sockets."

The Judges' Council has told us "All judges sentence according to the relevant sentencing guidelines as set by the independent Sentencing Council and according to the facts of each individual case."