David Blunkett blames rules for boy's death

David Blunkett, the former home secretary, has blamed a culture of risk aversion for the failure by two police staff to try to rescue a drowning boy.

Mr Blunkett sparked a debate on whether emergency service workers should be acting on "instinct", rather than following strict rules, when it came to saving lives.

He spoke after an inquest heard that two police community support officers (PCSOs) did nothing to help Jordon Lyon, 10, because of orders from their control room. They were told not to try to rescue the boy from a lake in Wigan because they had not received the right training. Instead they waited for regular officers to arrive.

By then it was too late to save Jordon, who had been trying to save his eight-year-old stepsister.

Mr Blunkett told Today programme on Radio 4: "What was appropriate in this circumstance for a uniformed officer would be appropriate for PCSOs as human beings, never mind the job.

I would like to think that you or I, when we arrived on the bank as just normal human beings … we would have a go, even if we had to pull out because we weren't divers."

The former minister, who was responsible five years ago for introducing PCSOs, then known as "Blunkett's bobbies", added: "I think it is about a wider culture of reducing risk. We are withdrawing from the kind of risk that other people used to take for granted on a daily basis."

Tracy Ganderton, Jordon's mother, said last week that the two PCSOs had not done enough to save her son. "If they had tried to find Jordon, then he might still be here today," she said.

However Dave Thompson, the Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, defended the officers. "I fully support the actions they took," he said.

There were calls yesterday for a review of laws, passed at the behest of the European Union, which restrict emergency workers from intervening in incidents until a risk assessment has been carried out. Senior politicians said legal restrictions, red tape and fears of compensation claims meant police, fire and ambulance officers could no longer do their jobs.

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "It is wholly unacceptable that EU legislation means that uniformed police officers would do less than a conscientious citizen in a matter of life and death. Red tape and targets have … made the culture of policing more risk-averse."

John Redwood, the author of a Conservative Party report on Britain's "health and safety" culture, called for a review of the 1997 Police (Health and Safety) Act. This brought the police under 1974 health and safety laws from which they had originally been exempted.

Mr Redwood said: "The 1997 Act should be reviewed so that police managers feel that it is operating in the best interests of the officers under their command, with a view to lightening the burden of paperwork."

Alan Gordon, the vice-chairman of the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said: "Officers attending an incident have to balance the risk associated in doing something against the alternative of doing nothing.

There's a thin line between being brave and being reckless."

George Lonsdale, 28, a former special constable from Lancashire, supported calls for a review of the laws. He was charged with assault and impersonating a police officer last year after he chased and caught a girl mugger. It was six months before the case was dropped.

"Being a police officer is all about personal judgment," he said. "Officers should be allowed to assess a situation themselves and decide how to act – not operate with their hands tied behind their backs. It's the system that is to blame, not the officers themselves."

The Wigan incident is not the first time that an inquest has heard claims that police officers' fears of breaking rules led to innocent people dying. Thames Valley police were criticised last year for a delay in allowing paramedics to treat two dying women.

Stuart Horgan shot his estranged wife, Vicky Horgan, 27, and her sister Emma Walton, 25, at a barbecue.

Police would not allow anyone into the Oxfordshire house until they were satisfied that it was safe.

The Metropolitan Police was the first force to be prosecuted under the 1997 law, for failing to protect the health of two officers who died while chasing suspects on roofs.

Many forces have since drawn up policies requiring officers to abandon a chase if a suspect climbs on to a roof.

Source: Sunday Telegraph