COP26: Police officers were deployed with only three weeks' training

Police officers with only three weeks’ training were deployed during COP26, it has emerged.

Some of the 140 officers were sent to the Glasgow climate summit, described as the biggest policing operation in Scotland’s history, while other were deployed across the country to support policing elsewhere, according to justice and social affairs magazine 1919.

Probationary officers are usually given 12 weeks of training before deployment.

Police officers dealing with protesters in Glasgow at COP26. Picture: Peter Summers/Getty Images

One of the probationers, who spoke to the magazine, claimed she was abused and spat at by a man resisting arrest, who was found to be carrying a knife. She was also called to a sudden death.

The senior officer accompanying the probationer said: “I’ve got 15 years in the job and I’ve been a tutor for seven or eight years, and it’s only really when resources are rock bottom.

“She and a lot of others have just been punted out after three weeks and the only thing they know about the law is their common sense.”

Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Jamie Greene said this mistreatment of the nation’s police needed to stop.

He said: “There is no doubt that years of SNP neglect after they merged Scotland’s police forces contributed to undertrained staff having to be deployed to the frontline during COP26 – and clearly this must never become the norm.

“Hundreds of frontline officers have been lost from Scotland’s streets since the SNP’s centralisation – and they have consistently short-changed them on funding for equipment too.”

The policing operation at COP26 was the largest ever staged in Scotland, with 10,000 officers deployed on summit duties each day.

Deputy chief officer David Page, who oversees staffing at Police Scotland, said: “We utilised 140 probationers undergoing officer training with Police Scotland during the COP26 policing operation.

“The majority were sent to our local policing divisions and departments around the country and were tasked with assisting business as usual, while others were deployed to work specifically at COP26.

“This is not the first instance of deploying probationers to assist with major policing operations, as a number of probationers were deployed last year to assist in the early stages of our response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“These recruits had all received instruction in core policing skills, first aid and officer safety training prior to being deployed, and the skillset and readiness of each officer was taken into account.

“They were accompanied on deployment by experienced officers.”

David Hamilton, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, said: “Nobody would choose for officers with just three weeks’ training to be deployed in an operational environment.

“This, however, is policing in 21st-century Scotland where we simply can’t afford not to use every resource that we have.

“I was surprised to meet a number of these probationers at COP26 as they were only ever meant to be backfilling in ‘business-as-usual’ – but they were being well looked after by their colleagues and I’m sure will have picked up some important skills and experiences.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson: “The deployment of resources during COP26 was a matter for the Chief Constable.

“We currently have 17,232 officers, a higher number than at any time during the previous administration, with Scotland having around 32 officers per 10,000 population compared to around 23 per 10,000 population in England and Wales.”