Shadow home secretary pushes for better legal shield for UK police officers

At a Westminster police summit Chris Philp raised worries about front-line officers losing their confidence to act. He pointed out that reasonable use-of-force cases are getting too much after-the-fact scrutiny (which doesnt match the real-life pressure officers face in quick-action situations)

The concerns come after several high-profile cases: Martyn Blake got cleared of murder charges at the Old Bailey bout a month ago‚ related to the Chris Kaba incident from 2 years ago. Another case involved Pc Paul Fisher who faced dangerous-driving charges after a crash while rushing to a terror incident almost 5 years ago; he was later cleared

The shadow home-secretary outlined several key changes:

• Better legal protection for officers following their training
• Anonymity rules for firearms officers facing murder charges
• Higher standards for watchdog decisions on criminal charges
• New guidelines for non-crime hate incident handling

“We need police officers to be ready for lawful action to protect themselves and others‚“ Philp explained. He stressed that if the govt wont make these changes‚ heʼll bring them to Parliament himself: the focus should be on real crime not thought-policing

Youʼre not the thought police ‚ adding that non-crime hate incidents should only be looked into when theres clear risk of crime happening