Video: Newbury News gets rare look at how police use force to fight crime

Last week, Thames Valley Police opened its Sulhamstead Training Centre to the media for a rare look at how its officers train to fight crime.

The theme of the day was use of force, covering how new recruits and serving officers train, guarantee their and the public’s safety and how they scrutinise and learn from their actions to ensure best practice.

But with officers forced to make snap decisions every day in the line of duty – and with the whole world often watching online – how much force is too much, and when is it justified?

We went along to find out.

“Within the past year, we’ve arrested more criminals, stopped and searched more people in the street and charged more offenders, which is a good thing,” chief constable Jason Hogg told newburytoday.

“But the public, quite rightly, are not just interested in what the police do, but how they do it.”

And one of the main ways is through a vigorous and realistic training regime, as we discovered.

Public and personal safety trainer Nikki Pearce, who spent eight years as an operational officer, and full-time trainer Sam Cook demonstrated the standard kit issued to a regular officer.

This includes a Kevlar Vest, which offers protection against knives and 9mm rounds from a gun.

Each officer also carries a pair of handcuffs to restrain a violent or fleeing suspect, a baton, spit guard, limb restraints and Captor Spray (commonly known as ‘pepper spray’), which is classed as a firearm.

Only specially trained officers carry tasers.

But is also crucial officers know use this kit appropriately, as physical development trainer Aaron Carey explained: “We use force that is proportionate, lawful, accountable, appropriate and necessary.

“Within that model, officers have to think is it appropriate to use force in that scenario and is it necessary to achieve their lawful objective.”

Mr Carey’s class explored two mock scenarios, one a house disturbance and the other involving a vulnerable person.

Officers dealt with each scenario while Mr Carey intervened to highlight safety issues and comment on their use of force.

“Training has changed massively,” added Mr Carey.

“One big change we’ve had was going from block-based training, where a skill is practised and repeated, to scenario-based training, where we manipulate certain scenarios to achieve certain outcomes.”

We were invited to input on each scenario.

In one case, our choices resulted in the death of suspect and police officer.

What lessons did we learn? Based on these scenarios, sometimes an officer was at greater risk of not acting fast enough rather than acting too much.

Consistent communication and de-escalation were also key, as well as assigning multiple officers to a single offender, which we were told helps to reduce fatigue and red mist and means less force is collectively applied.

When questioned how TVP deals with complaints arising from content seen online, Mr Hogg responded: “We talk about the importance of professionalism at all times.

“We can provide the best training and recruit the best quality officers.

“But all it takes is one highly edited clip which appears on social media and gives a very skewed view of what happened, which does then affect trust and confidence sadly.

“This is why we issue body worn video to all our officers.

“They have them on all the time when dealing with any incident, and that’s an opportunity not just for us to learn but to push back.

“The more we can do to be open and transparent with our use of powers in everything we do, then I think we will build confidence.”

But with regular officers not permitted to carry firearms in this country – many not even tasers – we asked Mr Hogg if he agrees officers are more vulnerable and whether this fact is factored into assessing their use of force in a hostile scenario.

He replied: “We don’t have an armed police force in this country, and hopefully long may it continue.

“It’s something I would certainly not support.

“I don’t accept that officers are vulnerable. I think they are better trained, have more powers and are better equipped than ever before.

“Depending on a threat, we can get officers to a scene very quickly to deal with a threat, including the use of firearms if required.

“We have increased the number of taser trained officers in our force.

“I think we have enough officers who are trained in this, but we will review that on an annual basis.”