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Met police chief warns unfit police officers

UK police chief says there is no place within the forces for fat officers.

Britain’s most senior police chief, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, has warned unfit and overweight police officers that they have no place within the forces.

 Hogan-Howe issued the stark warning to unfit and overweight police officers, as well as those considering a career in the police, as he believes it is a police officer’s duty to remain fit and active, especially if they are working on the beat. Mandatory annual police fitness tests came into force last year following Tom Winsor’s policing review.

But Sir Bernard believes that the current fitness test being implemented is too lenient, saying "It's taken too long to get the annual test, but it will start to have an increasing impact…For me, the standard is too low: I think it should be higher. It's relatively easy to pass."

"I think you've got a duty to your colleagues. If they shout for help, they want fit people to come. They don't want somebody waddling down the road who's never going to arrive, and when they get there they're out of breath."

But John Tully, chairman of the Met Police Federation, believes that a more holistic approach is needed and that while he is in favour of a basic fitness test, he highlights the fact that budget cuts and injury/illness often hamper the ability of an officer to maintain his or her fitness.

Tully said that there “is no differentiation between someone injured playing football in their own time, or injured on duty…Clearly the commissioner is laying a line down from what he has said, but it would be a sad day seeing people leave the organisation if that happens."

The test came into effect in September and it applies to officers all the way up to the position of chief inspector. Results given to the office of policing in 2014 showed that the test had been failed 807 times.

LM/HA


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