Revolving Doors responds to Sentencing Council Assault PC consultation
Revolving Doors has responded to the Sentencing Council’s public consultation on the ‘Assault PC’ offence, feeding into plans to update the sentencing guidelines for the offence of assaulting a police officer.
We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the consultation, which connects to our wider concerns about the application of the broader (separate) offence of assault against an emergency worker. The experience of our members, and others caught in the ‘revolving door’ of crisis and crime, is that this offence type draws vulnerable people with unmet health and social needs into legal proceedings when other out-of-court disposals would be more appropriate.
We believe the way the assault against an emergency worker offence is being used is having a net-widening effect, dragging more people into cycles of crisis and crime. It criminalises mental ill-health and trauma responses, and the resulting shame of a conviction can often drive people deeper into criminality.
Therefore, whilst we think the reinstatement of the specific Assault PC charge is a good step to bringing more proportionality to sentencing we remain concerned about the charging decisions surrounding assaults on police officers, which seem not to recognise the context this offence often occurs in. Some scenarios we have been made aware of include:
- The defendant being in mental health crisis,
- The assault occurring as a trauma response in situations where a person with a known history of trauma has reacted to a situation in which they felt endangered,
- Cases where police have been called to domestic abuse scenes. In these situations, the assault has been committed specifically by the victim of domestic abuse whilst in a state of panic about the potential consequences for them or their partner/abuser being arrested.
We have sought to acquire more data on the circumstances in which the assault against an emergency worker is occurring but have found this lacking. Our response is therefore based upon the experiences of our members and others with whom we have contact.
