Police Chief Damian Kitchen said he would not stand for it and would push for stronger punishments.
‘This is utterly unacceptable,’ he said yesterday.
‘I will not tolerate it.’
‘Police officers have to intervene in people’s lives and that sometimes means arresting people, breaking things up or giving direction.
‘I accept that at times that will come with the necessity to use force and sometimes there will be resistance in the form of pushing and shoving.
‘It’s not acceptable, but I can understand it. That is the nature of policing.
‘But what I’ve seen this weekend is behaviour that goes beyond that. We’ve seen two people bite police officers, and one officer get quite a serious kick to the groin. These are deliberate, nasty, aggressive and abhorrent acts. Biting is something a two-year-old would do – I’m angry about that in itself.’
He said that the vast majority, if not all of the incidents involved alcohol.
So far this year the police have recorded 46 assaults on officers, and more than half have involved a ‘deliberate or aggressive act’, including spitting, punches or headbutts to the face, kicking, biting and threats to kill.
‘Our officers are members of our community,’ he said.
‘These are ordinary people doing extraordinary jobs. They’ve got family, children, wives, husbands etc.
‘The impact of them being bitten and kicked while at work is as bad as it would be for anyone else doing any other job. They are human beings.’
He credited the officers who were assaulted over the weekend for remaining on duty.
‘I’d ask a number of people reading this to be really honest with themselves,’ he said.
‘If you were assaulted in your job, would you feel like going into it the day after? The answer is “no”.’
Mr Kitchen said he was always prepared to hear concerns about the actions of his officers.
‘But I’m also going to stick up for them,’ he said.
Though assault on an officer often carries a custodial sentence, Mr Kitchen said he would start to provide an impact statement where cases were prosecuted and push for higher sentences.
‘I will be actively asking for all the ones from this weekend to be looked at,’ he said.
‘I will not stand by and let people think it’s acceptable to drink to excess and behave like this.’
The chief is coming up to a year in post. Having come from Lancashire Police, he also previously worked in London, running the National Police Coordination centre operations team.
He noted that Guernsey was generally a very safe community.
‘We’re really fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the world where most people aren’t worried about getting their car stolen or their house broken into,’ he said.
‘We have a really law-abiding, good, kind community. This isn’t about the vast majority of Guernsey people, who are fabulous – it’s about a handful of people.
‘In the places I’ve worked in, yes, assaults and aggression faced by officers is, perhaps, more regular than it is in Guernsey – but that doesn’t make it acceptable. When you set it against the context of what an amazing place this is, it almost makes it more unacceptable and surprising.’
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