The police service has, once again, taken a battering in the media over the last few days. My focus on this website is about the welfare of officers and so try to avoid getting involved in the politics around policing but this constant criticism can only – let’s face it – worsen the health of Bobbies generally.

 I leave it to an anonymous officer who emailed into the Any Answers programme on Radio 4 last Saturday to express my own views on this subject.

 I am a serving female police officer and my heart aches for Sarah Everard and her family. That man doesn’t represent our service in any way. I am taken aback by the simplistic presumptive narrative that’s playing out in the media. Yes, more transparency is essential in our organisation, just as any other, and we’re working hard every day to achieve that. The police are full of men and women who are professional, compassionate, driven to keep you – the public – safe but they are fatigued, exhausted, jaded, working flat-out, day and night for you and your families. Now they hear that so many of the public have been happy to brand them as racist, perverted, rouge, twisted. How do you think that feels? The service that’s described is not one that I recognise.       

It’s not the police service I recognise either.

Stay safe and be lucky.