Belton Cobb wrote an interesting book Murdered on Duty which attempted to catalogue all murders of policemen in the hundred years which followed the passing of the 1857 Police Act
Interestingly the number of such deaths was much lower in the second 50 years than it had been in the first. Cobb suggested 2 main reasons for this. First the improvements in medical treatment & in the means of transport to hospital made for a much lower mortality rate for injured men. Secondly, the gradual understanding that the danger to police could be much reduced if they adopted conciliation or other methods of lowering the temperature when violence loomed, & the development of training in methods which meant fewer injuries to police in the first place
I was thinking about this because I heard on the radio that the lawyer for Harry Roberts had entered the debate on police monitoring of communications with prisoners
Harry Roberts was convicted of the murder by shooting of 3 policemen at Shepherds Bush in 1966. This was shortly after the suspension of all capital punishment in England. Before that, the murder of policemen was one of the categories for which the death penalty was retained under the 1957 Homicide Act, so feeling ran high
There are some (to me) mysterious legal complications over Roberts appeal for parole after 40 or so years in prison on a life sentence
Such a murder came as a very great shock in 1966, when Dixon of Dock Green gave us our television idea of a policeman – even though the original character of that name had been shot on film by Dirk Bogarde.
But the main reason I always notice press references to the case is that we were then living in Kensal Rise – not too far from the crime scene. One night we were rudely awoken at about 2 oclock one morning by the heavy sound of police boots pounding across the flat roof above our heads. They were chasing – without success - a suspect in the murder
It strikes me that an update to Cobbs tale, to cover the third 50 years of policing, would be very instructive
