Violence towards officers ‘a worrying development’ says PSNI chief constable

Simon Byrne said support and wellbeing teams had to work together at short notice to provide a coordinated welfare response for officers involved in the disorder.

And he described the violence towards police personnel as “a worrying development”.

This included the attempted murder of a police staff member, who also serves as a part-time police officer, on April 19 by the dissident republican group the New IRA, which “placed a viable explosive device in close proximity to her home”.

Mr Byrne raised his concerns in his latest Accountability Report to the Northern Ireland Policing Board this week.

“A total of 120 police officers and one police dog were injured in the course of public order incidents between March 29 and April 25, 2021. While this has not adversely affected our capacity to respond to business as usual, this is a worrying development,” said Mr Byrne.

“Police will always step forward to protect communities from harm and keep people safe, however, this is not reflective of what policing should look like in 2021.

“The issue of violence towards police personnel is one which featured in the last two Accountability Reports to the Board and is of increasing concern.

“Costs are not limited to the depletion of already strained finances and overtime budgets. There is also a human cost in terms of the wellbeing impact to the officers and staff on the front line who will have worked long hours, been physically injured and experienced trauma.

“The impact is further felt in communities, who inevitably experience a reduced policing capacity and focus, even if only in the short term.”

He added: In order to mitigate the impacts on our people, post-incident peer support and wellbeing volunteer teams worked together at short notice to coordinate a welfare response.

“This was a collaborative effort between officers and staff from District Policing, Operational Support Department and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service. A range of support arrangements were made available, including physical, mental health and social wellbeing measures to ensure that frontline personnel were afforded much needed comfort and respite facilities at Wellbeing Hubs across the country.”

Mr Byrne said so far 22 arrests have been made. Of these, 15 people have been charged to court, three of whom have been remanded into custody, four have been released on investigative bail and a further three people have been reported to the Public Prosecution Service.

Mr Byrne also welcomed the additional £12.3 million allocated to the police budget for 2021/22 by the Finance Minister as “a positive development”.

He said the additional funding will be “targeted directly on officer and staff recruitment”.

“The majority of this funding (£9.8 million) will enable the Police Service to retain headcount at 7,000 police officers and 2,580 police staff, rather than the necessary reduction to 6,700 police officers in line with the draft budget,” said Mr Byrne.

“The residual £2.5 million will fund the recruitment of a further 100 police officers during 2021/22, taking total headcount to 7,100 by March 2022. This is a welcome step closer to the commitment of 7,500 in the New Decade New Approach document.”

However, Mr Byrne said they were “mindful of the need for these numbers to be funded in future baselines”.

He added: “The full year cost of maintaining officer numbers at 7,100 and staff numbers at 2,580 will be closer to £25 million and it will be important that this is recognised and reflected in an uplifted police funding baseline to ensure numbers can be maintained.”

Mr Byrne said an updated Resource Plan was being finalised, “reflecting this anticipated uplift to the previous ‘flat cash’ draft budget allocation” on the assumption that a final budget will be confirmed via the June Monitoring Round.