MP, Labour’s Shadow Policing
Minister, commenting on the Independent Study of
Police Air Support by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary
and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), said:
“Ministers promised the creation of the National Police Air
Service would deliver a 24/7 service. But despite the best
efforts of local forces, a chronic lack of investment and an
ageing, inadequate fleet is letting criminals off the hook.
Police commanders are now so disillusioned with the level of
service they are routinely not calling on air support at all.
“It is astonishing that more than half the time the National
Police Air Service do not attend a request for air support and
setting a target of 60 minutes to arrive, even when a crime is in
action is hopelessly slow and clearly not fit for purpose. What
is worse is that criminals are getting wise to it. The Government
need to give the National Police Air Service the support they
need to fight crime.”
Ends
Notes to editors
-
1. Performance
at force level
- · Where
a force calls for air support, the two most important factors
from the point of view of the requesting officer are whether an
aircraft actually attends and, if so, how long it takes to
arrive. We therefore looked at the proportion of calls for
service to the National Police Air Service (NPAS) by each force
that actually resulted in attendance of an aircraft.
-
· HMICFRS,
Police Drones and Helicopters Independent Review; As can be
seen from Figure 1, attendance rates varied considerably, with
over 73 percent of calls from the Metropolitan Police Service
resulting in attendance of an aircraft, but only 23 percent of
calls from Lincolnshire Police. Only six forces had an aircraft
respond to calls for service more than half of the time, while
ten forces had an aircraft respond to fewer than one-third of
their calls.
-
2. Criminal
perception that police are no longer attending
incidents
-
· HMICFRS,
Police Drones and Helicopters Independent Review, p24: In
one force, officers reported that the number of pursuits had
risen from 100 in 2014 to 336 in 2016, and that debriefing of
prisoners had revealed that part of the reason was criminal
perception that the police no longer had ready access to
helicopter support.
