Officers seel legal advice over riot injuries

A police federation today defended a decision by some of its members to consider claiming compensation for injuries they suffered in the Bradford riots in Britain.

Officers could be awarded huge compensation payments if they are successful in pursuing claims that senior officers owed them a duty of care but failed to meet it.

A legal challenge could claim that officers were left wide open to the risk of being seriously injured by an angry mob, the federation said.

About 260 police were injured when they tried to stop Asian and white youths going on the rampage in the West Yorkshire city on July 7.

Some 46 officers are still on sick leave.

West Yorkshire Police Federation today denied that officers were suing for ‘‘trauma’’.

But it confirmed that seven officers who suffered lower leg injuries when they were struck by lumps of concrete had sought legal advice.

Federation spokesman Richard Critchley said the Association of Chief Police Officers had been too slow to learn the lessons from previous rioting, in the Lancashire town of Oldham.

‘‘The national Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) have been slow to react to what happened earlier in Oldham,’’ he said.

Officers’ complaints centre on the tactics police used to quell thousands of angry rioters who hurled rocks and petrol bombs at officers, many of whom were in the front line for long periods of time.

Officers have spoken of sophisticated rioting techniques in which yobs hurled a barrage of missiles in the air to get police to lift their riot shields before throwing lumps of concrete at their lower legs and feet.

The technique was used in Oldham, Mr Critchley said, and yet senior officers in West Yorkshire Police did not modify the procedures to be used by their force so as to counter the threat during the Bradford riot.

Mr Critchley said: ‘‘Officers were in difficult or frightening positions. Some felt they were perhaps not managed properly.

‘‘What they will have to prove somewhere along the line is that management were neglectful or lacked their duty of care.

‘‘No proceedings have yet been instigated. We have not even had any advice that an officer may be able to establish a case against the Chief (Constable of West Yorkshire).’’

As many as seven officers have so far submitted grievances to a federation solicitor, who will advise whether or not they have a case.