Nearly 1,500 'courageous' police officers in Hampshire were assaulted last year

A total of 1,304 officers were attacked in the year ending March 2021.

That works out as 25 every week or three assaults every day.

Not all assaults lead to injuries with 952 of those escaping unharmed but 352 did suffer an injury.

In total, there were almost 37,000 assaults on police officers in England and Wales including British Transport, with 25,734 an assault without injury on a constable - an increase of 21 per cent compared with 21,321 in the previous year.

There were 11,235 crimes of assault with an injury - a small increase of 1.2 per cent compared with 11,106 in the previous year.

‘Their courageous work must be properly rewarded/recognised,’ Hampshire Police Federation said.

The data is not thought to provide a complete picture of assaults against police officers and there are a number of comparability issues across forces, the Home Office said.