Safety fears as Met's firearms officers to be given less training

 
Firearm fears: Training scaled back as Met cuts costs
Justin Davenport12 November 2013

Training for police firearms officers in London has been cut back to save money, the Evening Standard can reveal.

Scotland Yard has reduced the number of hours allocated to “refresher” training for all authorised firearms officers in the force.

Refresher courses for the Met’s armed response teams — known as Trojan units — have also been scaled back.

Officers from the armed response teams patrol the capital 24/7 and were first on the scene at Woolwich after soldier Lee Rigby was killed earlier this year. Insiders say the training is being reduced to fall in line with provincial forces — the minimum required standard for police marksmen — and fear the move could put lives at risk.

One said: “People are effectively training less. All firearms training has gone back to national standards. We had a viable, effective tested system that worked and we are ditching that for the sake of saving money.” The cuts are being introduced as the Met’s specialist firearms command, known as SCO19, comes under scrutiny in the inquest into the police shooting of Mark Duggan.

The savings are part of the Met’s four-year financial strategy aimed at cutting £500 million from the £3.6 billion annual budget to meet Government-mandated cuts. London Assembly Green Party member Baroness Jones said: “I am deeply concerned by a cut in the amount of time firearms officers spend training.

“If we must have firearms officers then they need to be trained to the highest standard because when guns are involved there is the potential for things to go drastically wrong, with terrible consequences for both the officers and the public.”

Met Police Federation chairman John Tully said: “We hope that standards are not impacted upon by the reduction in time devoted to training.”

In a statement, the Yard said that refresher courses for firearms officers were being “compressed”.

A spokeswoman said: “All officers who join the Met’s firearms unit are subject to arduous training before being selected. They then carry out regular refresher training to ensure they meet the standard stipulated in the National Police Firearms Training Curriculum.”

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