Police ready to respond to rural firearms attacks

Police have reassured the public that they have the capability to get to firearms incidents in any part of the UK, including rural areas.

National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for armed policing, Deputy Chief Constable Simon Chesterman, said: “All areas of the UK are covered by Armed Response Vehicles. Firearms teams are concentrated in areas deemed to of greatest risk but we have plans to enable us to surge support to other areas quickly – as we have done effectively in the past.

“In rare situations we could call upon the military to support a ‘lift and shift’ with helicopters but in most cases the high speed response vehicles would be the best option to get armed officers to the scene.”

The suggestion that nuclear power plants could be vulnerable was also refuted by Mr Chesterman who added: “Nuclear power plants are extremely well protected by the fully armed Civil Nuclear Constabulary.”

The police service in England and Wales is currently in the process of recruiting and training an extra 1,500 armed officers. Mr Chesterman accepted that this will be challenging. He said: “Being an armed officer is a big ask. What potential volunteers from within the service think very carefully about before applying  is not necessarily the level of threat they may have to confront but what will happen if they make the split second decision to discharge their weapon on behalf of the state.

“We believe there should be a rebuttable presumption that they did the job they were trained for and should therefore be treated as an expert witness.

“Firearms officers understand and support the requirement for accountability, transparency and investigation but don’t want to be treated like criminal suspects. There may be times when they do need to be treated differently but it must be based on evidence.”