West Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Brian Booth has taken to the high profile Today programme to highlight the “woolly law” making policing the pandemic harder for its members.
Brian told BBC Radio 4 this morning (12 January) that police officers are “really cheesed off” with the lack of clarity from Government.
He said: “We’ve got woolly law, which isn’t easy to apply. It is not easy to do their job.”
Mr Booth said: “We hear a lot of talk around the Covid rules but if you split that down, we have law and we have guidance. So if you take the example of this weekend in Derbyshire we have the law which states you must stay at home apart from certain exemptions, such as taking exercise. But if you look at the guidance it says you must stay local.
“We have a situation where an officer has issued a ticket, trying to protect the NHS and to save lives, and uphold the law, and was applying it in in the spirit in which it was written. Normally in law if you have a new law made and it is challenged it will go to the courts, argued and a judgement will be made and it becomes case law - and that takes years. But we don’t have time for that in Covid. We need a sound basis in law and we need it now and we need to stop leaving loose ends.”
Brian also called on officers to be given vaccines so that they are able to do their jobs safely. He added: “We don’t have the vaccine being administered to our frontline officers so they are putting themselves at exceptional risk every day doing their work.”
Officers are unlikely to be vaccinated for another two months it emerged yesterday, after Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said officers, along with teachers, will have to wait until phase 2.
"We need laws, not wishy-washy guidance". Chairman Brian Bootth has been on BBC Look North this evening highlighting the need for clarity from Government on policing's work to combat Covid-19.
When will police officers and teachers get the Covid-19 vaccine? At Government press conference this afternoon, Priti Patel states:
“We are looking at those on the front line, those at occupational risk of coming into contact with the virus... and we are working to make sure we can get the vaccine to them.”
Makes no mention of when that might be - only after top 4 most vulnerable groups and that they are working with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation
Speaking about lockdown guidance and the lack of clarity, Chairman of West Yorkshire Police Federation Brian Booth told the PA news agency: “The guidance is that you should be local in your own community near where you live but people are far exceeding that. Officers have no power in law to deal with it, so it is a bit of a nonsense really."
West Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Brian Booth has taken to the high profile Today programme to highlight the “woolly law” making policing the pandemic harder for its members.
Brian told BBC Radio 4 this morning (12 January) that police officers are “really cheesed off” with the lack of clarity from Government.
He said: “We’ve got woolly law, which isn’t easy to apply. It is not easy to do their job.”
Mr Booth said: “We hear a lot of talk around the Covid rules but if you split that down, we have law and we have guidance. So if you take the example of this weekend in Derbyshire we have the law which states you must stay at home apart from certain exemptions, such as taking exercise. But if you look at the guidance it says you must stay local.
“We have a situation where an officer has issued a ticket, trying to protect the NHS and to save lives, and uphold the law, and was applying it in in the spirit in which it was written. Normally in law if you have a new law made and it is challenged it will go to the courts, argued and a judgement will be made and it becomes case law - and that takes years. But we don’t have time for that in Covid. We need a sound basis in law and we need it now and we need to stop leaving loose ends.”
Brian also called on officers to be given vaccines so that they are able to do their jobs safely. He added: “We don’t have the vaccine being administered to our frontline officers so they are putting themselves at exceptional risk every day doing their work.”
Officers are unlikely to be vaccinated for another two months it emerged yesterday, after Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said officers, along with teachers, will have to wait until phase 2.
