More than two Cleveland police officers assaulted every day last year
Cleveland Police Federation says it must stop
We are hearing about the extent in which police officers in Cleveland are being assaulted.
Government figures show that 777 were assaulted last year - that is more than 14 every week and more than two every day.
Stephen Williams-Reader is the branch chair of Cleveland Police Federation and has been a police officer for 22 years.
He said: "It's devastating to read such high volumes of officers in Cleveland are being subjected to violence. Assaults against officers don't only result in cuts and bruises and both long and short term injuries, the psychological damage to police officers is huge. It's immeasurable.
"I've been quite significally assaulted myself; I've been kicked in the face, spat at and I've been ran over. Obviously the impact on me has been huge and my family. It took me away from the service to the community.
"Quite recently we've had four officers that were stabbed, we have officers being bitten by dogs, getting ran over, punched in the face, kicked, spat at and blood spat in their faces. It's become almost publicly acceptable now that you can assault a police officer and that's so wrong.
"Every day the risks that police officers face are huge and it's the unknown. Everytime they respond to a call, the statistics are telling us that there's a likelihood a police officer will be assaulted. It's coming into contact, it's responding to calls for service, it could be our road traffic department pulling over vehicles, it could be dealing with calls for support in domestics and it could be policing events.
"It appears to be accepted by society these days that you can assault police officers and why is that happening? We feel let down by the Government and the judicial system. There's been lots of news about officer recruitment and yes, we have been recruiting officers in large volumes but nowhere near the volumes that we need is the reality.
"Cleveland is a rural force with metropolitan demands. The demand placed on police officers in Cleveland is huge. The strength, bravery and resilience that's shown every day by every officer that goes out there to protect the Cleveland community needs to be applauded. It needs to be commended.
"Behind every single officer that serves the communities of Cleveland, there's a family. There's a wife, husband, children, mums, dads and friends who all they want is for their loved ones to go to work, to serve their communities, to do the best of the job they can do but to get home safe. There's so many occasions unfortunately where that's not happening.
"Injuries to officers will result in abstractions from available officers to deal with incidents. Why is it becoming acceptable that you put on the uniform or you're in a detective role, or any other roles that we carry out to service our communities, and a part and parcel of that is an acceptable that you're going to be assaulted? It must and has to stop immediately."