A SECOND suspended sentence given to a man who shoved a police officer and threatened to kill him was labelled a “real kick in the teeth” by the police union chairman.

Insp Mark Andrews, chairman of the Wiltshire Police Federation, said judges need to use the force of the law to punish those who assault 999 workers.

He told the Adver: “We fought hard to have an increase in the sentence for people who assault emergency service workers.

“We can have a life sentence attached to that, but if the judges are not going to enforce it and give prison sentences, then these assaults will keep happening.”

His comments followed a district judge’s decision to give a second suspended sentence to Toothill man Joshua Richards, who shoved a Wiltshire Police sergeant, threatened to kill him then later said the officer was lucky he hadn’t “swung” for his jaw.

He was given a suspended sentence last year for another attack on a police officer.

Imposing the 12-week sentence suspended for two years, District Judge Dickens told 26-year-old Richards: “We will find if we, as a society, treat our police officers like this we will have no police officers.”

Insp Andrews called the result demoralising.

He said: “I hoped that we had seen a turn for the better recently.

"There were cases recently where officers had been spat at and those individuals had received some prison time and rightly so. I thought we’d turned a corner, but this is a real kick in the teeth for the officers I represent.”

He said the officer who was assaulted had complained to him and he’d passed on his concerns to the chief constable and police and crime commissioner.

Figures obtained by the Press Association show Wiltshire Police recorded 214 attacks on officers from February to November last year – the equivalent of five assaults every week.

That was more than double the 95 reported during the same period in 2019. The highest number of assaults was recorded in April when there were 31.

Insp Andrews said: “Certain individuals within our community think it’s okay to push us, kick us, spit at us and that hasn’t changed as a result of coronavirus.

What has changed is that certain offenders are using Covid-19 as a weapon.

“They’re threatening officers with it, they’re saying they have it, they’re spitting at the officers and suggesting to them that they have the virus.

“And then the officers have the stress of thinking they may now have it.

"They have to go through a series of tests then maybe have to go home with it, they might have a young family, elderly relatives to look after and it may be putting them at risk.”

A number of those who have spat, coughed over or bitten officers then claimed to have had coronavirus have been jailed by Swindon magistrates and judges.