Death of PC Andrew Harper highlights rise in assaults on officers

‘Policing has always been dangerous,’ says Thames Valley Police chief constable

When he died after being dragged along by a car while investigating a burglary in Berkshire, PC Andrew Harper became the first police officer to be killed on duty since the Westminster Bridge terror attack in March 2017.

His death comes amid a rise in recorded assaults against constables.

Figures released last month by the Office of National Statistics revealed there were more than 30,000 attacks on police in the twelve months to March 2019, up from around 26,000 the previous year.

They included 10,399 “assaults with injury on a constable”, an increase of 27 per cent since 2017-18 when the crime category was first recorded. The number of assaults on officers “without injury” also rose by 13 per cent to 20,578.

That equates to at least 28 injuries to a police officer every day, or 84 assaults on a police officer every day.

Thames Valley Police – the force which employed PC Harper – saw a 33 per cent rise in total assaults from to 794 to 1,057 in the year up to March 2019.

Asked whether policing is becoming more dangerous, Thames Valley Police chief constable John Campbell said: “I think policing has always been dangerous.”

He added: “Police officers, day in day out, face the kind of challenges and physical violence that often result in assault. In these circumstances, in these extreme circumstances, it’s resulted in the loss of Andrew’s life, so from that point of view, is policing getting more violent?

“I think generally there’s a challenge for society in terms of the easy recourse to violence. But, certainly from a policing point of view, we know there are certain associated risks.”

At least nine police officers, including PC Harper, have been killed attempting to prevent crime in England and Wales over the past decade.

In 2012 Ian Dibell of Essex Police was shot dead trying to disarm a gunman near his home in Clacton-on-Sea.

Two months later Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes were lured to their deaths by Dale Cregan, then one of Britain’s most wanted men, using a bogus burglary report.

Merseyside Police officer David Philips, who was killed in a hit-and-run in 2015, is among those who have died during police pursuits of suspects.

Most recently, Keith Palmer was stabbed to death tackling a terrorist outside the Palace of Westminster.

The Police Roll of Honour Trust lists more than 5,000 officers who have died on duty since 1680.

The figure includes ”criminal acts, enemy action in air raids, misadventure whilst taking special risks to protect the public or make arrests, accidents whilst on routine patrol or travelling to and from duty, natural causes and unknown causes”.

Additional reporting by Press Association