Police plea after 'drunken youths' assault emergency workers

They have urged families to question their children’s whereabouts following a spate of incidents in Wingate.

A Peterlee Police statement read: “Police have received a number of reports of large groups of drunken youths in the Wingate area in the past two weeks.

"These youths have assaulted emergency service workers who are trying to keep them safe. Is your child one of these?”

The statement later added: “Officers will deal robustly with any youths found to be causing public order offences or found to be drunk."

One of the latest incidents took place on Friday, September 4, after police were alerted at around 6.40pm that a gang of youths were preventing firefighters from putting a blaze out behind Front Street.

A bottle was reported to have been thrown at a patrol car before the youths left.

Inquiries to try to identify those involved are continuing.

Further details about the incidents are expected later this week.

News of the incidents follows less than a week after the force revealed that assaults on the county’s police officers had increased by more than a third during the first four months of lockdown.

The number of such attacks rose to 228 between March and July compared to 168 over the same period last year.

Chief Constable Jo Farrell said: “Attacks on police officers and staff are unacceptable at any time. But they are especially appalling when these officers have worked tirelessly on the frontline to keep people safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our officers put their own lives on the line for the public every single day and assaults should never be seen as part of the job.

“Police officers are human beings who have every right to return home safely at the end of each shift.

“Attacks on officers not only have physical consequences, but can leave them with long-term psychological damage which is also often felt by their loved ones and colleagues.”

In nearby Hartlepool, Gareth Evans, 43, of Harcourt Street, was jailed for six weeks last week at Teesside Magistrates’ Court after admitting assaulting four police officers only a day earlier.

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