COMMON assaults on police constables in the county, including suspects spitting while claiming to be infected with Covid-19 are on the rise.

Covid spitting threats have hampered Cumbria police's efforts to make arrests since lockdown.

370 Cumbria officers were assaulted this year - the equivalent of more than one a day.

A Cumbria Police spokesman said: “Assaults against emergency workers doing their best to keep the public safe are deplorable. Incidents like these have the potential to remove officers from the front-line as well as cause a great deal of distress and this is why there will be zero-tolerance for such actions which put emergency services personnel at risk.

“All emergency workers, whether they be a police officer, paramedic, nurse, firefighter or other emergency worker, should be able to go about their working day without the risk of assault.”

Paul Williams, chairman of Cumbria Police Federation, said: “The rise in assaults on police officers is staggering and sickening.

"The message is clearly not getting out there how it is unacceptable to spit at or assault a police officer just doing their duty and our cops need more intense backing and support with this.

"Nationally assaults on police officers this year included 10,399 crimes of assault with injury and 20,578 were crimes of “assault without injury."

Ché Donald, vice chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “We are absolutely appalled by the huge surge in assaults against emergency workers.

"Police officers and other emergency workers who serve the public do not deserve to be assaulted for simply doing their jobs.

"Those who commit these despicable offences must be harshly dealt with by the courts and face the full force of the law.”

In May this year MPs were told that all police officers should be issued with spit guards to prevent some offenders biting, coughing and spitting at officers after claiming they have COVID-19.

Paul Griffiths, the president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, told members of the home affairs select committee that a minority of offenders had resorted to behaviour which was putting officers at risk of contracting the virus.