DAVID Kennedy is a fan of the TV series Blue Lights. Not for the thrills and spills, but for the way the drama explores the realities of life as a frontline police officer. “It’s the best cop show I’ve ever watched,” he says. “It’s spot on in the way it deals with the psychological trauma.”
Kennedy is the general-secretary of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), which represents 98% of all officers across the country. He’s in his Glasgow office, giving me an exclusive run-down of the SPF’s new manifesto for police reform, which will be released later this month ahead of the Holyrood election.
It’s an urgent plea to whichever party wins power to get to grips with policing in Scotland, for the sake of officers and the public. Officers are buckling under the pressure of low numbers on the frontline and the violence they face on the street, Kennedy says. The public is being left at risk.
“Policing is in crisis,” he says, “and the officers trying their hardest to provide a service to their communities are being broken in the process.”
Kennedy says that “every single police officer” in Scotland will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder at some point in their career.
David Kennedy, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation. Photo: Colin Mearns
It’s “common”, he explains, for whole areas of a city like Glasgow to have as few as four officers on duty at any given time. “Each area should have a minimum safe staffing level but that doesn’t exist, and the operation base levels that were in place, they are not being met.
“There is a fear that letting the public know how many actual police officers there are working through the night will cause fear.”
Scotland needs at least “an extra 3,000 officers”, he says. Kennedy adds that high-ranking officers also believe 3,000 additional police are required. Police Scotland needs investment in line with inflation.
He’s unimpressed by government claims that Scotland “has more police officers per head than England. It’s like ‘my dad is bigger than your dad’. Who cares? We need what’s right for our country and communities. And it’s not right. We don’t have enough officers”.
When it comes to the behaviour of the Scottish Government and police top brass, Kennedy believes “officers are being treated abysmally. We must protect the officers who protect this country 24/7. But sadly, in the last 10 years, all I’ve seen are rules being changed that make policing a whole lot harder with a lot less officers.
“Cops in Scotland are being emotionally and psychologically battered every day. That can’t go on.”
A return to local policing, with officers visible on the beat in communities, is one of the key SPF manifesto demands. The Scottish Police Authority, which oversees Police Scotland, must be “redesigned”.
Many on the SPA board have backgrounds as high-ranking public sector civil servants. The SPF wants local councillors on the board as well, so there’s accountability for Scottish communities.
Police Scotland needs remodelled to reflect the needs of the nation. The SPF wants three new posts created: Area Deputy Chief Constables for the north, east and west. This would make Police Scotland more “responsive to local concerns”.
Police Scotland has “exceeded its savings targets, but at the cost of depleted frontline resources, reduced operational capability and weakened public confidence”.
The most controversial manifesto demand is for the arming of officers with guns. Kennedy isn’t advocating a system where police carry weapons on their hip. He wants a system where firearms are kept in cars so that officers on patrol can access guns to protect citizens or themselves.
Referring to incidents which have seen officers chased by a man wielding a chainsaw, and images in the media of youths carrying machetes in the centre of Scottish cities, Kennedy says: “If you walk out in to the street in Scotland with a knife you should expect to be shot by police.”
Broken
HE believes that “the model is broken” when it comes to Scottish policing. The force is “full of enthusiastic officers who have their hands – and feet – tied”. Since the creation of the single force in 2013, Kennedy says, “£200 million a year has been taken out” of the police service. “That’s billions,” he adds.
Many officers who would “probably serve a 30-40 year career, will last 10-15 years because they’ll burn out,” he adds. Staffing levels are so tight that it’s not unusual, for example, for newly qualified officers to take on the mentoring of probationer officers.
“We have cops going through their two-year probation period and then straight away becoming tutor constables. It’s not fair. Nobody should be a tutor constable without a minimum five years’ service.”
Police Scotland
Kennedy says that without the necessary “apprenticeship”, new officers “are learning by the seat of their pants”, and handing down mistakes to the rookies they mentor.
There’s pressure to recruit as many new officers as possible. That’s leading to officers being hired who aren’t suited to the force, Kennedy says. One new recruit was “neurodiverse and couldn’t cross the road”, he adds.
Kennedy says the force should “be open” to as many candidates as possible, “but there comes a point when you’ve got to say ‘you can’t do this job because you’re not mentally or physically fit’, and so shouldn’t be allowed in”.
Senior officers would once interview all prospective recruits at home to assess their suitability. “They don’t do that any more,” Kennedy says. At-home interviews flagged possible risk factors in the recruit’s personality, or security risks like family links to organised crime.
When Kennedy joined nearly 30 years ago, his two character referees were interviewed at their homes. “They don’t do that any more either,” he adds.
In terms of organised crime trying to infiltrate police ranks, Kennedy says the loss of these safeguards is “absolutely a worry”.
In terms of vetting, Kennedy adds: “I don’t believe the police service is doing that job correctly – 99.9% might be the right people, but it’s that 0.1% that gets through.”
Kennedy says that when he drives to work he rarely sees enough officers on a 20-mile journey to “count on one hand. There’s no visible deterrent any more”.
When it comes to officers on foot patrol in local communities, Kennedy adds: “You don’t see them.” Foot patrol isn’t just vital for community safety, but for officers learning how to police. On foot, police meet locals and can gather intelligence, essential for preventing crime and making arrests. “We need that back,” he says.
Officers need to be “properly protected, equipped and supported to do their job safely”. But they aren’t, says Kennedy. Body cameras are being introduced. This will protect both the public from police abusing their powers and officers from false accusations.
However, Kennedy says other forces had body cameras “20 years ago. The only reason we haven’t is because of money – they haven’t wanted to spend money”.
He believes that if officers had been wearing body cameras during the Sheku Bayoh incident there would have been no need for a public inquiry as everything would have been recorded. “We’re 20 years too late,” he adds.
OFFICERS even have to buy their own kit sometimes due to poor quality uniforms. “What really frustrates me is that the executive [senior officers] have the best of gear, but if you’re a cop on the street who’s doing the core policing job, you’ve got the worst equipment. That’s not right.”
In terms of police numbers, Kennedy says that 17,234 was “the magical figure that the SNP was stuck on for so long. Today, we have under 16,500”.
The proof that police numbers are in crisis, however, is seen in the rate at which officers have “rest days cancelled”, and the “use of overtime for routine patrols and routine jobs like working in the control room”. Commanders are “constantly asking for overtime”.
Kennedy adds: “The reality is that officers can’t take their rest days.” Overtime should only be used for major incidents, like “children going missing”, not day-to-day duties. Officers also continually lose rest days by being called to court when they should be on leave. “It’s a nightmare for them.”
When officers are summoned to court they’re often “told to go away as they’re not needed” if the case is adjourned.
If every officer took their rest days owed, Kennedy says, “there would be no cops on the street”.
On average, over a 24-hour period on any weekend, there are “around 5,000 frontline officers on paper”, Kennedy says, adding: “But in reality the average is about 3,500.” Clearly, not all will be on the street. Many will be in offices.
“The problem is the definition of ‘frontline’,” says Kennedy. “The public would be shocked how many officers are actually on patrol on any given night.”
He adds: “People aren’t reporting crime because they don’t want to wait days on a cop turning up at their door.”
Does he know for sure this is happening? “I’ve seen that personally,” Kennedy replies. “I ask people to report crime and they say ‘what’s the point?’.”
The way police effectiveness is measured is skewed, Kennedy explains. He says an officer could spend their shift patrolling Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street and report that no crimes had been committed. However, “that doesn’t suit management”.
Kennedy says it’s the officer’s presence which often prevents crime occurring but that doesn’t “stack for government” or “suit the statistics” which measure the number of offences detected.
He believes a better system can be created if policing returns to being focused locally, with local accountability. Before the single force was created, there were joint police boards with local councillors. “But we’ve lost that,” Kennedy says.
Along with the loss of local accountability has come the loss of “the local cop” who was known to residents. A local officer builds trust with their local community, Kennedy adds, which is essential to crime prevention.
LOCAL policing is particular important when it comes to terrorism. Local officers might pick up intelligence about potential extremists speaking to people in the community, or even when buying their lunch at a local café. “All intelligence starts with community policing,” says Kennedy. “We’ve lost the community part of policing.”
During the 2011 London riots, Kennedy explains, Scottish officers were drafted into the city to help with policing. The Scottish officers relied on local community policing techniques which the London officers didn’t use.
“The public in England loved us as we were talking to the kids, having a coffee with shopkeepers, and they were telling us ‘this is brilliant, we used to have this but we don’t any more’. Then we went and did the exact same thing. Scotland followed England and is now in the same position.”
The single force was created two years later in 2013. Is he saying that’s what killed off local policing? “It was the start of it,” Kennedy replies. The creation of Police Scotland was “down to money”, he believes, in the wake of the 2008 financial crash.
Rather than a single force, three forces should have been created for Scotland, Kennedy believes, given the size and geographical diversity of the nation. The single force is “too big. What’s right in one town, may not be right in another”.
Kennedy was an officer in both Glasgow and Paisley, and notes that policing styles differed despite the closeness of the two towns. Glasgow has tens of thousands of people entering and leaving the city each day for work and leisure, whereas Paisley is a more static community.
Getting local councillors rather than bureaucrats or figures from industry on the Scottish Police Authority board would help ensure such distinctions were made on the ground, as councillors would know their own area and its requirements.
Councillors on the SPA board would be “accountable to their community as they are elected”.
Currently, the Scottish Government “decides who is on the board”. Cosla, the umbrella body for local authorities, could take on that role instead, Kennedy suggests.
The lack of local policing means “there’s a growing gulf between communities and police”. Kennedy once worked as a community officer and recalls how he was able to quickly reassure worried residents in his area if there were crimes because he knew them and they knew him.
A bobby on the local beat was “part of the glue” which held communities together, he says. “But we’ve lost that.” It adds to the growing sense of a lack of community cohesion, Kennedy adds.
More local policing may also reduce violence against officers as someone is less likely to assault an officer if they know them.
“A LOT of kids don’t know any cops,” says Kennedy. Apart from him, Kennedy’s own children “don’t know any police”. He has previously run anti-drug and anti-knife events in schools. Today, such events are increasingly rare.
The police is run on “a five-year plan” by government and top brass. “But we need a 40-year plan instead.”
Departments like health and justice need to work together, rather than compete for government funding. Instead of public bodies fighting for resources “we need collaboration”.
That could help resolve one of the major issues undermining crime-fighting: officers policing the mental health crisis. Police spend up to 80% of their time dealing with mental health calls, often with no criminal element, or people suffering from the effects of drugs and alcohol.
Kennedy says if someone is having a mental health crisis then they don’t need a police officer – they need a nurse, doctor or social worker.
If a person is taken to hospital for mental health reasons and deemed a flight risk, for example, officers will have to remain on the ward rather than return to the street to deal with crime. It’s a huge drain on time and manpower.
Police are stepping in for the ambulance service as there aren’t enough NHS ambulances. Officers attending mental health calls when no crime has occurred could “escalate” the situation rather than calm it, Kennedy adds. He says sending police to mental health calls when no crime has been committed is like sending the police to a house fire. “You’d say, ‘what are you doing here – where’s the fire brigade?’.”
Police can also waste huge amounts of time trying to find a hospital bed for someone suffering from a mental health episode. The Metropolitan Police has said it will stop responding to mental health calls if there is no crime or threat to life.
Kennedy doesn’t support that position, as the risk would remain of someone dying. He prefers a “triage” approach, where police attend but leave if they aren’t needed and hand the job over to health workers or social workers.
Freeing up officers from dealing with non-crime related mental health issues would create the manpower needed to get police back on the beat in local communities, Kennedy says.
The flip side of the mental health issue is the psychological impact of the job on officers. Support for police “isn’t good enough”, he says. Therapy is currently “opt in”.
Kennedy wants “routine psychological check-ins” to be compulsory, perhaps every six months. By the time officers realise they need help it’s often “too late”. Some officers may also claim they don’t need help due to a culture of not wanting to seem ‘weak’ when, in fact, they do.
“Every single officer will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder in one way or another,” Kennedy says. “Many probably won’t realise that until they leave.”
MANY police use “dark humour” as a release valve “because they see a lot of dark things”. That dark humour “can be misinterpreted” by the public as uncaring. Kennedy insists it is not a sign of police cynicism. Many medics often have the same response to trauma, he adds.
The murder of children has a particularly traumatic effect on officers, as does dealing with sex crime. It’s rare to find an officer who hasn’t been assaulted at some point. Suffering physical violence has profound psychological effects.
Violence towards officers is “definitely rising. We’re seeing more and more violence on the streets, more and more officers assaulted”. Petrol bombs have been thrown at police in Edinburgh by gangs of youths during Bonfire Night disturbances.
Kennedy had to undergo training in which he was set alight by a petrol bomb. The experience was horrific, he says. He has been “attacked and assaulted” while on duty.
“In those violent situations, adrenalin kicks in and you may not realise the effect it has on you until later in life,” he explains.
One of Kennedy’s friends was an officer at the Lockerbie tragedy and was profoundly affected by PTSD.
All officers will confront issues that have “an absolutely traumatic effect on them”. One of his colleagues was the senior investigating officer in more than a dozen “child deaths and murders, and that’s just horrific”.
Kennedy says that emotionally he “couldn’t do the job” of officers who deal exclusively with paedophile crime.
All recruits should be psychologically profiled before joining, he adds, to ensure they aren’t a danger to the public like Wayne Couzens, the officer who murdered Sarah Everard.
“But that is not happening because of the money,” Kennedy says. Just as paedophiles have been attracted to the priesthood or jobs with children, policing can attract potential offenders.
“Why aren’t we investing in this before someone joins the force?” he asks.
Candidates for chief constable are profiled but not rank-and-file officers.
Profiling would have to expand if the SPF plan to increase access to firearms for officers comes to pass. Kennedy wants to replicate the New Zealand model, where firearms are kept in police cars so that officers can access them in the event of a threat to life.
He pointed to the series of shootings on Skye in 2022, when a man murdered his brother-in-law and then attempted to kill his wife and two other people, as an incident where he believes police should have had access to firearms.
Kennedy said: “Years ago, firearms were available at the local police station. Somebody would be trained, and when required they could go and get the gun. In New Zealand, guns are kept in the car. Officers aren’t walking about with guns, but there’s access if required.”
A shooting in a remote location in Scotland could take a specialist firearms unit “45 minutes to an hour-and-a-half to get there”, by which time there could be multiple fatalities.
IF firearms were stored “in every car”, Kennedy says, officers “can protect life if required”. Guns would only be used to protect life, he stressed, not for “tactical purposes” – like stopping suspects fleeing.
Such a change in policy would require many more officers trained in firearms. Every officer should also be trained to use tasers as well, he says. However, only around 2,000 Scottish officers are trained to deploy tasers.
Additionally, there aren’t enough tasers for all 2,000 officers to carry one.
Would the increase in firearms not jeopardise Scotland’s much celebrated principle of “policing by consent”, where officers are seen as “citizens in uniform” who uphold the law with the support of the public, rather than an armed organisation which enforces the law?
No, says Kennedy. “I don’t think so. All we’re saying is we want greater access to firearms. It’s not as if we’d be walking around with guns routinely. We don’t want that. We want the ability to protect citizens by being able to access firearms and use them if required.”
Kennedy says he would never want to erode the principle of policing by consent. He’s sees it as integral. More than 70% of police when last surveyed supported carrying firearms.
As knife crime is so prevalent, Kennedy believes that every officer attending knife incidents “should go with a firearm. So if you produce a knife in Scotland, if you walk out into the street in Scotland with a knife, you should expect to be shot by the police because the reality is that’s a lethal weapon you’re holding”.
A knife incident should not be attended by officers equipped only with tasers and batons. “But the problem is that’s what invariably happens.”
As a knife incident is potentially “lethal, it has to be answered by lethal force”. Referring to incidents of youths carrying machetes in the centre of Scottish cities, he said: “We don’t want to shoot people, says there comes a point when you’ve got to say, ‘that’s a threat to life’. A machete will do a lot of damage. It’ll kill somebody. So the reaction should be firearms.”
He warned that any notion that a knife-wielding assailant can be subdued with a shot to the leg or arm is totally misguided. Trying to do that could result in an innocent bystander being hit.
So firearms officers must aim at the body. Kennedy explained that the moment a firearms officer shoots someone they immediately start trying to save their life.
Read more
“We don’t want people to die,” he says. “But if you’re going to walk out into the street with a knife that can kill people, expect that the police may have to kill you to protect others and themselves. That’s the reality.”
He notes that there is clearly a risk of “suicide by cop” from someone standing in the street with a knife intending to be shot.
“I understand that, but you’ve got to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say it isn’t acceptable to walk through a city with a machete.”
Politicised
KENNEDY feels that policing has become increasingly politicised and officers are blamed for enforcing laws which have been passed by elected governments. Issues like hate crime and protest have attracted criticism from both left and right.
“Laws are passed, and we police without fear or favour,” Kennedy says. “We aren’t allowed as police officers to have allegiance to any political position.” Those who are angry about legislation – including opposition politicians – should “question the government”, not criticise the police. “They’re attacking the wrong people.”
Scotland was once celebrated for reducing violent crime, through both enforcement and education in schools. “We’re not doing crime prevention any more,” says Kennedy. “We were combating violent crime at all levels and at a young age.” Lack of money means a lot of preventative work “has stopped”.
Violence reduced for a “generation”, he feels, and now “it’s come back. Once we fixed the problem, we thought ‘that’s it’. But it’s got to be a continuous process otherwise the problem returns.”
Kennedy says many child offenders are “doomed from the day they’re born” due to poverty, parental drug use, parental offending and domestic violence. “It’s tragic,” he adds.
To tackle prison overcrowding, the Scottish Government is proposing automatic release for “certain short-term prisoners” when they’ve served 30% of their sentence. “Where’s the deterrent?” Kennedy asks. “It makes a mockery of the justice system.”
Officers are “frustrated” when someone they’ve jailed “gets straight back out and does the same crime again”, especially if that offence is violent. “There’s nothing worse for a cop. They want to see that person locked up. It’s failing everybody.”
Kennedy says the courts, prosecution service and prisons “don’t work together” in a joined-up way. “There’s no cohesion.”
All violent offenders should be jailed, Kennedy says, with lesser options like community service for non-violent offences to ease overcrowding.
Are officers bringing cases which prosecutors choose not to take to court because the justice system is overburdened? “Very probably,” he says. He’d like prosecutors based in police stations so decisions can be taken on whether or not cases will go to trial, meaning less police time is wasted.
The bottom line for Kennedy is that the public don’t feel as safe as they once did. “And they’re right to feel like that,” he says.
