Hampshire police deputy chief reveals plan for more armed officers

Hampshire police’s deputy chief constable Graham McNulty said the force was looking at its capability in the wake of the Paris gun and bomb terror attacks last year.

Speaking at a public meeting in Andover, he said: ‘We’ve been looking at how they did it, what they did and we brought that back to our learning about how we deal with firearms incidents, which are very rare in the main.

‘We have armed response vehicles that are available, we also have other armed assets that are around counter-terrorism.

‘We think we have good plans, we do exercises and we refresh them all the time.

‘There has, as you’ve probably seen, been statements I think made publicly that there needs to be a lift in the number of armed response officers available and we are looking at that at this time about how we may do that.

‘There are conversations I need to have with the police and crime commissioner about that.

‘But there will be nationally – this isn’t just a local issue – more armed response officers in the future.’