Appeal for public’s help after police officers attacked protecting group of women in city centre

Police are appealing for witnesses after officers were attacked in the line of duty.

Officers were responding to reports of three men harassing a group of girls and, whilst trying to de-escalate the disturbance, one of them was assaulted by three men, leaving him with an injury to his thumb.

He was punched to the head and pushed around during the incident before he used an incapacitant spray in an attempt to control and detain the men.

His colleague was then punched in the head before an officer used a TASER device on one of the attackers while his colleague detained a second suspect.

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More officers quickly arrived to help.

The two officers were attacked while trying to defuse an argument at the corner of Burton Street and Trinity Square in Nottingham city centre shortly before midnight on Sunday (10 October 2021).

One went to hospital after suffering an injury to his thumb and remains off work whilst he is recovering. The welfare of both officers is being looked after by Nottinghamshire Police.

Three men, aged 27, 31 and 54, were arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and assaulting an emergency worker.

Officers investigating are now appealing to anyone in the area with information or who witnessed the incident to get in touch.

Detective Constable Ben Grayson, from Nottinghamshire Police, said: “Assaults on frontline emergency service workers who work tirelessly to serve and protect the public are completely and utterly unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

“Our priority is to keep people safe, and it is appalling they were faced with violence whilst they were attending reports of sexual assault and harassment, which is something we take extremely seriously.

“We have repeatedly stressed that this is not just part of the job and assaults on emergency workers are treated very seriously by the courts.

“We continue to investigate this incident and we would now urge anyone who witnessed the incident, or has any mobile phone footage or further information, to get in touch with us on 101, quoting incident 17 of 10 October 2021.”