The recent anti-immigrant riots and looting after the murder of three girls in Southport was many things and has been condemned for many reasons. One aspect perhaps under-mentioned because taken as obvious was the violence – whether against public servants in uniform, or the vulnerable, violence continues to run like a thread through front line work, writes Mark Rowe.
Violence against women and girls is a national emergency, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has declared; as has the cop in charge nationally of work on VAWG (violence against women and girls). She is Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, Deputy CEO of the College of Policing; more in the September edition of Professional Security Magazine.
As the authorities such as British Transport Police (BTP) and Transport for London (TfL) acknowledge, such crimes as sexual harassment and assault go under-reported – hence their advertising of ‘See it – say it – sorted’ and newer ways to report things on the railways such as texting 61016 or via the Railway Guardian app.
Findings from a recent BTP survey into violence against women and girls (VAWG) make for grim reading, says Kieran Mackie, managing director of Amulet, the security guarding contractor. One of its specialisms is the railways; and the firm’s Travelsafe Support and Enforcement Officers (TSEOs) at work on buses for Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) are featured in the August edition of Professional Security Magazine. He said: “No one should feel unsafe when using the rail network, but this survey is a stark reminder that thousands of women and girls do face violence and harassment every year.
“The BTP needs support in reducing VAWG and security firms have the expertise to do so. We recently took part in a research project with the University of Cambridge and one of our train operating company clients to reduce VAWG at stations that were identified as hotspots for abuse. Sixty Amulet Travel Safety Officers (TSOs) were hand selected and briefed on the project which included increasing their presence at target stations.
“Over a six-month period, we saw a significant decrease in VAWG at train stations that implemented enhanced security measures compared to stations that maintained regular security procedures. This was delivered by existing TSO teams without an increase in funding or resources, demonstrating that safety can be enhanced with smart planning and resource allocation. I hope that this survey will act as a wake-up call about the extensiveness of VAWG, and spur more action to reduce crime and better support all rail users.”
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, addressing the London Policing Board at its most recent quarterly meeting in June, reported demand was increasing – such as 999 calls received – and yet ‘sharply degrading capacity’. More specifically he spoke of ‘the true scale of VAWG in the country, far beyond what is reported’ and estimates of ‘potentially as many as four million perpetrators in the UK’. Yet more specifically he spoke of the sword incident at Hainault in north London in April; Sir Mark visited the injured officers in hospital. He quoted his deputy Dame Lynne Owens, who found the officers who responded said: ‘Are we going to be in trouble? Are we going to be investigated for how it was dealt with?’ Sir Mark commented: “I think that is extraordinary that the first concern of people who have faced something so traumatic is that they are going to be in trouble or going to be investigated for facing down something so dangerous, because of the environment that is created around policing.”
As Sir Mark added, ‘capacity stretch’ (to use the jargon of policing) means ‘prioritisation’, to use another word of Sir Mark’s – we can put it another way, police cannot answer every call promptly or at all; it means (to return to Sir Mark) that police are ‘targeting the highest-risk offenders and most vulnerable victims, but the stretch that this situation creates means that we are not doing as well as we would like to do on volume crime’. And yet, if the violent are in the hundreds of thousands or even millions, who’s to say how much violence goes unrecorded – which feeds into why people may not bother, another time, to take time to contact the police; hence under-reporting.
To give two examples of violence faced by the emergency services; London’s firefighters and control room officers reported a 35 per cent increase in incidents in 2023, compared to 2022. While most incidents were verbal rather than physical abuse, four staff were physically assaulted, including a female firefighter requiring hospital treatment and stitches after she was punched in the face.
Some 130 incidents were reported. One saw firefighters responding to a 999 call on Ridley Road in Hackney. Bottles were thrown at a fire engine and a firefighter was injured. Police officers were called to attend. Firefighters were verbally abused when parking outside a property. A firefighter was pushed and fell into a colleague leading to an injury caused by their helmet. A resident screamed at firefighters because a road was blocked as part of the emergency response to an incident in Bow.
London Fire Brigade Deputy Commissioner for Operational Preparedness and Response, Jonathan Smith, said any attack on an emergency worker is abhorrent. He said: “Firefighters and control officers dedicate their lives to saving and protecting people and the vast majority of Londoners would never do anything to deliberately make a tough job even harder.
“This increase in attacks is concerning. There is never any excuse to target an emergency service worker – either physically or verbally – and right-minded people will join us in condemning those who attack firefighters or our blue light workers in this way.
“We take any attack on our people seriously and managers provide full support to any colleagues affected, as well as access to our counselling and trauma team if needed. I want to remind Londoners that whenever they see us, or our emergency service partners, out and about – in what are often very difficult circumstances – please be kind and give them the support needed to do a professional job.”
Likewise the West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) reports that call assessors who take the 999 calls have been threatened with death and the rape of their children. Alcohol is the most prominent factor in assaults against ambulance staff, followed by drugs and people in mental health crisis. Race and sexuality have also increased as exacerbating factors in assaults. WMAS Chief Executive Anthony Marsh said: “For many staff, this sort of abuse can have a profound impact on their lives with some staff never recovering and actually leaving the service altogether. While it is a minority of people who commit these offences, we need the public to support us to make such abuse something that is unacceptable.
“Equally, we need the support of the courts to make it absolutely clear that such abuse will not be accepted and severe punishments will be handed down to those who attack our staff.”
Photo by Mark Rowe: Met Police parked van, Cable Street, east London, summer late afternoon.
