Joe Shute: Helping police deal with life on the front line

PC Teresa Milburn had been in the West Yorkshire force for just over a year when she and her colleague on patrol, PC Sharon Beshenivsky, received a message on their radio on November 18, 2005, saying an alarm had been set off at the Universal Express travel agent in Bradford city centre.

When the two officers arrived, shortly after 3pm, they found themselves facing three men, one of whom was armed with a 9mm gun, and another with a knife. Pc Beshenivsky, a mother-of-three with two step-children, was shot at point-blank range in the chest and killed. Pc Milburn was shot in almost exactly the same place, but miraculously, she survived.

Just days later, she was out of hospital and helping with vital information to bring the gang to justice. In December 2006, Yusuf Abdillh Jamma, 20, and Faisal Razzaq, 25, of London, and Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah, 25, of Birmingham, were sentenced to life in prison, at Newcastle Crown Court.

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Now, nearly five years on from the attack, Pc Milburn has been promoted to Detective Constable and is still working for West Yorkshire Police, but the struggle to come to terms with the trauma of what she faced continues. She says one of the most vital steps she took on the road to recovery was a two-week stay at the Police Treatment Centre, which has respite and rehabilitation facilities in Harrogate and Perthshire, and treats about 4,000 police officers from across the country every year.

More officers than ever before are being admitted suffering from stress and depression stemming from the high-pressure performance-driven nature of modern-day policing. Concern over the upcoming cuts to the police budget in the comprehensive spending review – which could leave the officer numbers in some parts of the region at their lowest levels in 30 years – has also been blamed for the rise.

Dc Milburn has urged other officers to follow her lead and face up to the underlying mental health problems that can affect so many in the force. "I went there three months after the shooting and it helped me a lot," she said.

"The staff and facilities there are brilliant. I thought I was dealing with it all fine, but going to the centre made me realise I needed to get further long-term help. Police officers are very good at putting on a front and just wanting to soldier on, but it stores up inside you and the smallest thing can make

you crack.

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"People look at police officers and just expect you to deal with it,

but we work in a very stressful environment and it affects you.

"The job is so much more stressful now, the additional paperwork is horrendous, and we are all working longer hours. When the cuts come in, it is only going to get more difficult. We are going to need the centre more than ever in the coming years."

Originally called the Northern Police Convalescent Home, the 76-bed Police Treatment Centre is a registered charity and was built in 1903 by Victorian philanthropist Catherine Gurney on a 12-acre site on the outskirts of Harrogate.

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In the past, staff at the centre dealt mainly with officers who had succumbed to influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Nowadays, it covers 56,000 officers across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, offering state-of-the-art facilities including a physiotherapy unit, sports hall, hydrotherapy pool, snooker table and putting green, as well as massages, reflexology and hot stone treatments.

Officers are also encouraged to attend group workshops and one-on-one counselling sessions with nurses and patient welfare advisors to learn to change their lives and cope with the stress of the job. If they require more long-term psychological help after leaving the centre,

they are put in touch with counsellors within their force.

The centre is funded by the police themselves – members currently make a 1.21 voluntary weekly donation from their salary. Officers apply to be treated at the centre, are admitted on a basis of clinical need and can only stay for two weeks at a time. Officers at the centre say it has helped them to stay in the force.

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"A place like this really helps motivate me to not give up", said Pc Chris Kerins, 41, a dog handler for British Transport Police who has been a policeman for 21 years and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008.

"I use two dogs to search for drugs, cash and firearms. But my left leg was getting weak and I was suffering a lot of problems. It is my second stay this year and the physio work is really helping me keep positive and stay on the frontline."

Another patient is a 31-year-old South Yorkshire Police road traffic officer who was involved in a serious car accident while on duty three years ago and forced to take five months off work with a damaged lower back. The problem recurred following another accident in May this year. She said: "I was given some physio in the force but it was only once a fortnight. It dealt with the immediate pain but afterwards I continued having pains, nausea and migraines. It started to affect me at home and my quality of life became quite poor. I would work a 10-hour shift and come home absolutely exhausted and all I could do was sleep.

"I first came here for two weeks at the end of July and have started another week now. I feel it has made such a difference here, they really get to know you. This has restored my confidence in my ability to do my job."

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While many officers use the centre to address physical problems ranging from slipped discs to stab wounds, there is an increasing demand for help with psychological issues.

Heather Fraser-Fear, who has worked there as a patient support advisor for the past five years said: "I have definitely noticed a rise in officers talking about mental health.

"This week alone I have had a couple of referrals from the

physiotherapy department to talk to people with underlying stress and depression. I see on average about 40 patients a month.

"There is a concern about the budget cuts (in police forces). A lot of people are not sure about what the future has in store of them and there are a lot of rumours going around. Of course this affects your mental well-being."

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Last year, a survey commissioned by the Police Superintendents' Association found nearly a quarter of senior officers in England and Wales had experienced anxiety and depression. Officers reported working up to 60 hours a week, in breach of European employment

legislation, "bullying behaviour" from bosses and a large workload with inadequate resources to do the job properly. Similar reports are prevalent among rank and file officers.

Nigel Day, of the North Yorkshire branch of the Police Federation and a trustee of the Police Treatment Centre, served as a police officer in North Yorkshire for 25 years before retiring from the force, and has witnessed the changes first hand.

"When I was serving there was more of a reluctance to discuss it", he says. "Often people didn't know what was happening to them and they would turn to things like alcohol to suppress it.

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"I was working during the Dunkeswick air crash, near Harrogate, in 1995, when 12 people were killed after a light aircraft crashed in a barley field during bad weather, following take-off off from Leeds Bradford airport.

"It was a major operation and we had a lot of officers who were seriously traumatically affected. I can think of at least one who had to leave the job because of post- traumatic stress. Dealing with stress is a very important part of what we do at the centre.

"When the Government are talking about wanting to achieve more for less and we are looking at budget cuts that could ultimately lead to a reduction in officer numbers, this is going to increase the workload in what is already a very stressful job."

As everyone braces themselves for news of where the axe will fall, the fear is that cuts in funding to police forces will mean the charity will receive fewer donations, while at the same time the stress caused by even greater workloads will mean yet more need for its work is created.

Those hot stone massages, it seems, have never been more necessary to keep Britain's police officers from succumbing to the pressures of the job, and staying out on the beat.