A senior officer has condemned the racist abuse new officers are receiving.

Hertfordshire Constabulary has revealed a number of racist incidents against its own officers while performing their duties, Many of the officers involved joined the service recently, it says. 

One officer had been assaulted or racially abused 15 times in just one year.

ACC Matt Nicholls  who is the force lead for equality, diversity, and inclusion, said: “To have to contend with racial abuse on a regular basis is completely unacceptable and we will not hesitate to take immediate action against anyone who behaves in this manner and will always prosecute wherever possible.

“Many of the officers who have been abused in this way are relatively young in service and joined the police to protect the public and to proudly represent their communities. They are being assaulted and abused just for doing their job and this type of behaviour will not be tolerated,” he said.

With the ACC’s statement came a catalogue of incidents against staff.

• An officer based in East Herts who has been with the Constabulary for less than two years, had in 2021 alone, been racially abused on three occasions and assaulted twice.
• An officer based in St Albans was assaulted and/or racially abused 15 times between 2019-2020.
• An officer based in Royston was patrolling his beat in 2020 and someone shouted racial abuse at him whilst he drove past.
• In March 2021, an officer based in Broxbourne was punched three times whilst arresting a man who was racially abusing him at the time.

The county’s population profile has changed with 19.2% now from an ethnic minority. But racially-motivated incidents are a significant cause for concern.

Last year health workers complained they were being targeted and two years ago Hertfordshire County Council issued a public statement condemning racism which admitted it still had more work to do.

One of the officers who has been racially abused shared his experience: “I was on routine patrol in my local neighbourhood area, trying to support my community and deal with local issues reported by members of the public, when I was verbally abused. The incident left me feeling sad and confused as to why in this current day and age, a small proportion of people feel it’s acceptable to racially abuse anyone.”

The force urged its officers to treat any incident as an offence and not write it off as part of the job.

ACC Nicholls added: “We work very hard in Hertfordshire to encourage people to report race/hate crime and have specialist hate crime officers in post to facilitate this and offer specialist support.

"We offer our own staff the same service. No one should be targeted, and these offences should not go unreported, regardless of how big or small the incident may be.”