Senior police leader 'gobsmacked' by lenient coronavirus cough attack sentences

John Apter, national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said he is aware of dozens of attacks in which coronavirus has been "weaponised" in recent weeks.

He welcomed prison terms for offenders including 39-year-old Charlene Merrifield, who was this week sentenced to 21 weeks after coughing at police as she was being arrested in Hebburn, near Newcastle.

Mr Apter said: "We still see inconsistencies around the country, and I scratch my head sometimes when I see some sentences being given out which are so lenient I'm gobsmacked by them."

He added: "When they walk free from court, given the sort of people we are talking about, metaphorically they are sticking two fingers up at the wider judicial system and to society and they are walking away with a smile on their face and nothing more than a slap on the wrist."

His comments came after Trevor Dangerfield, 39, was spared jail for coughing in a police officer's face and saying he wanted to infect his family with Covid-19 in St Leonards, East Sussex, last Friday.

Dangerfield pleaded guilty to assaulting an emergency worker at Brighton Magistrates' Court and was sentenced to 18 weeks' imprisonment suspended for a year, ordered to pay £100 compensation and a victim surcharge of £156.

Mr Apter, whose organisation represents 120,000 officers up to chief inspector rank, said the case has been referred back to Sussex Police for a review of whether the case can be appealed and called for more challenges from forces and prosecutors to "unjust" sentences.

He said: "There are certainly more people being sentenced to prison for spitting and coughing than before but what we are also seeing is what I would class as perverse decisions, where individuals who have wilfully threatened officers with this virus and coughed and spat in their faces then walked away with a suspended sentence or even less.

"In these extreme times when people are weaponising a deadly and destructive virus, then not to send people to prison who are found guilty of that should be the exception not the norm.

"These are violent offenders and, to do what they do, they are wicked, violent offenders, they should spend time in prison."

Mr Apter said one police officer he had spoken to felt the "haze" of a suspect's cough on his face as he threatened to infect him and his family with coronavirus.

He said: "This is an experienced police officer - he said 'I was scared'."

The director of public prosecutions (DPP) Max Hill has warned that using Covid-19 as a threat against emergency workers would be treated as a crime that could lead to up to two years in prison.

And new proposed sentencing guidelines outlined how spitting or coughing will be considered as aggravating factors when criminals are convicted of common assault offences.

Mr Apter added: "My message to the courts, to the judges and magistrates is please support your emergency services. The sentencing guidance and the offences are there. Please use the powers that you have been given.

"These individuals who spit and cough at police officers to transmit a deadly virus should be dealt with far more harshly than they have been.

"A message needs to be sent. These are not the sort of individuals who should escape some time behind bars."