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Officer left disfigured after brutal assault 'concerned' about 'desperate' attacks on police amid cost of living crisis
4 October 2023, 07:47 | Updated: 4 October 2023, 07:57
A Sussex Police Sergeant has told LBC he now has a sunken eye-socket and sight problems after being assaulted while doing his job.
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Alec Barrett was knocked to the ground and repeatedly punched in the face in the centre of Brighton in April this year – when trying to make an arrest for shoplifting and violence.
The 38-year-old suffered sustained concussion, a broken eye socket, bleeding in his sinuses, a broken nose and damage to his cheek.
He still isn’t back at work and told LBC what he remembers about being attacked: “There were several reports of an extremely violent group in Brighton town centre, assaulting random people on the street, running into shops stealing items, assaulting staff members and I was one of multiple officers looking for that group.”
As the first officer on scene, he said he was shocked by the level of violence being shown towards him as he tried to make an arrest: “I just didn’t know what hit me. It just really shook me that I didn’t know what was happening. I’ve gone from a position of not seeing such a heavy strike to my head coming to then looking up to trying to work out what it was, and he just rains more punches down on my face.
Alec told LBC he believes the cost of living is having an impact on how officers are being treated patrolling the street: “People are a lot more desperate than they used to be because of how much things are now costing, the cut in police numbers has certainly not helped. I think people fancy their chances a lot more against officers.”
Figures obtained by LBC show assaults on police officers on duty in some areas have more than tripled over the past five years.
LBC sent freedom of information requests to all 43 police forces in across England and Wales.
We found half of those have seen a steady increase in assaults over the past five years - while in some areas attacks on officers rose dramatically in 2020 and then again in 2022.
From March 2022-2023 40,330 officers were assaulted while on duty, a 20 percent increase from 30,977 recorded from March 2018-2019.
That’s 775 assaults a week. 110 police officers being assaulted every day. More than 4 an hour.
Alec Barrett is now living with life-changing injuries, and he told LBC the assault has had a profound impact on his family: “A horrendously swollen face and black eye - they were quite upset and scared of me and it took quite a lot of time to rebuild the confidence there that I was still the same person - I was still their dad.
“I am permanently disfigured. I’m short of having plates put in which come with their own risk. I will never look the same. I will never look how I once was, and it’s difficult looking in the mirror each time because it reminds you of what’s happened.”
Under the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018, introduced after significant pressure from Nick Ferrari’s GEMS campaign, a person found guilty of assaulting an emergency worker could face up to two years in prison or a fine.
Jonathan Beauchamp was given a year’s custodial sentence suspended for two years for assaulting Police Sergeant Alec Barrett.
He was also put on a five-month curfew and ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work and pay £2,000 in compensation.
Deputy Chair of Sussex Police Federation Raffaele Cioffi is calling for more severe consequences for those assaulting police officers: “If you assault an emergency worker who provides their time and care to choose to go into that career, and supports members of the public, there needs to be that protection in law that I know safe in my mind when I go out and about, if members of the public assault me and its serious enough, then they are going to suffer some time in prison to really reflect on what they’ve done.”
