CRIMINALS who assault police officers face an average fine of less than pounds-200, new research has revealed.
Despite courts being able to impose a pounds-5000 fine or nine months' imprisonment, officers say that prosecutors routinely downgrade assaults against police.
The pounds-200 figure, which relates to police assaults in Strathclyde, the country's biggest force area, will be unveiled at the annual Scottish Police Federation conference in Peebles this week.
In the motion, police leaders from Strathclyde accuse procurators fiscal of "an apparent lack of concern" when downgrading assaults against them. Their anger has been compounded by figures showing that police assaults have jumped by 20-per cent in the last two years. More than 8000 police assaults are committed across Scotland each year.
Jim Duffy, chairman of the federation's Strathclyde branch, said: "I struggle, and I am sure the public struggle, to understand why those who assault officers are not given suitable punishments for the crimes they commit. There are some divisions in Glasgow where officers can expect to be assaulted two or three times in the year."
Following the conference on Tuesday, the federation will make representations to the Scottish Executive to ensure that assaults on officers are not seen as a "hazard of the job" by the justice system.
A Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service spokesman said it was working with the Scottish Police Federation on the subject of police assaults "in order to provide further reassurance".
A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said that assaults on police officers were "unacceptable".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article