Chief Constable says two police officers have taken their own lives in recent months – citing 'exhausted' organisation
The Chief Constable has said that two police officers have taken their own lives in recent months – linking it to the pressures of working in an “exhausted” organisation.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, he also warned that he considers the recent unrest in Northern Ireland to be “an emergency situation” and therefore extra funding is required from government ministers.
Jon Boutcher also says that while he appreciates that policing is a devolved matter “national security remains a UK government responsibility” and that the PSNI is “dangerously underfunded”.
A letter to Keir Starmer, sent on Friday and seen by the News Letter, sets out a range of concerns the police chief has about the financial and staffing situation facing the service.
It also outlines the impact he says that it is having on the PSNI’s ability to provide services including neighbourhood policing, the air and armoured fleet, response times, reduced roads policing and “declining resilience” to widespread public disorder.
The Chief Constable told the PM that “the level of reduced officers and headcount is already presenting direct impact on services” and that “whilst we can request mutual aid support from forces in Scotland, England and Wales, in the current circumstances there is a level of uncertainty to this being available”.
The letter said: “Increasing stress on the workforce has caused record high sickness levels simple because the organisation is exhausted. Officers are routinely unable to take rest days or annual leave and have to work high levels of overtime.
“As a result of these pressures I am incredibly sad to report that in the last three months, two PSNI officers have committed suicide with both families directly attributing the reason for their deaths to work pressures in the PSNI. Both families reference high caseloads, working excessive overtime and being unable to take annual leave as the cause of the suicides.
“In over 40 years of policing I have not experienced or heard of officers committing suicide because of such workforce issues. I cannot sufficiently emphasise how under-funded and under-resourced the PSNI is compared with other police forces”, he said.