Hainault stabbings: Former police officer makes tearful plea - 'We're on the brink of anarchy'

but now joining us is

former

police

officer

Norman Brennan and Norman one of the most surprising elements of this story today is those two injured

police

officer

s who intervened and who ran towards danger instead of away from it. His heroism is clearly at the center. of this story today, yes, absolutely. I mean, I think the first thing we need to say is that all of our thoughts should be primarily with the five injured people, we'll start giving you an update in a few minutes on the extent of your injuries and you. You are absolutely right, two members of my own police family.

I was a police officer for 31 years and I am probably Britain's biggest law and order advocate against knife crime. But I've been talking about this for 35 years. Many families have lost. their lives, uh, mothers are planning funerals instead of Futures and, getting back to your point, you are absolutely right, it is the police officers, predominantly unarmed, the offers of police officers that will appear first of all in these incidents, although it depends on what type of call the police back off Norman just on that, at that point, is there any argument considering shocking scenes like this for more police officers to be well armed?

I'm in favor of fully arming the British Police Service, something I've talked about for 30 years um, I don't know if today is the right day to discuss that, but we really need to find out the extent of the injuries and the false circumstances, but um , yeah, the streets of London and the streets of Britain, uh, in my 45. 46 years of policing and Law and Order have never been so dangerous. Knife crime is at an epidemic stage. I have never seen so many

stabbings

. I have never seen so many murders. I have never seen so many children use knives and yes. carrying them for self-defense they also carry them to commit crimes neither of them is acceptable and we are seeing the devastation of those who carry knives and again we have heard about machetes look, we deal with too many machetes Prof Banning, there you can buy a machete you can go to a hunting store, you can buy them online, you can stop people from buying them, but let's get back to the crux of the matter, if we had a mandatory 5 year prison sentence implicit in our criminal justice system.

I promise you this and I have said it in 30 years, the number of people who carry knives and carry and commit knife crimes, murders of these parents will be drastically reduced, how many more parents are we going to have to tell them? I'm sorry your son didn't come home when we were just reporting yesterday on this show uh two men trapped inside a store in Birmingham uh the shopkeeper had fortunately escaped and was barricading them inside the store they were wielding machetes uh knives are not only dangerous a kitchen knife is quite dangerous let alone these huge and vicious ones Looking for weapons I saw the incident myself.

I see them day after day as traders all over Britain. God bless you. They do everything they can to provide a service to their community and unfortunately there are some inside and outside of those communities who think it's okay to come. along with a knife or a machete and steal them and sometimes mutilate or kill them. As I say, I have been trying to tell Britain for 35 years, 15 of them when I was a serving police officer, that the streets of Britain are going to become unsafe, that the public will fear walking on the streets, they will fear traveling on transportation and will calculate when and where they leave.

Many people now won't even go to London. London has no law. I'm not saying that all streets are lawless, but London is considered a lawless place because people carry knives, machetes, they rob and attack people, they steal Rolex watches, that's why people now don't travel to London or wear watches. for which many have worked hard. I have never seen the criminal justice system in Britain. in such chaos and there is no particular crime, whether it be stalking, robbery, robbery, you name the crime that is not out of control and when we look to our criminal justice system to protect them, the public does not see the police, the criminal justice system.

I do not protect the police, the public or victims with deterrent sentencing and I am afraid that today we see scenes like this that most people just think I have to accept it because I don't think anything is going to change well when you have an attitude like that and a criminal justice system that fails us all we are basically on the

brink

of

anarchy

there is also a crisis in the metropolitan police it is the only police force in England that has not met recruitment targets also a police force where we have seen officers There are now fewer armed officers than before because those who do carry weapons are dragged through the mill, even when using them appropriately for many, it is simply not worth the risk.

You're right. I talk to Ser in the office every day. Of the recent 20,000 police officers who were recruited again from the 22,000 officers who were stood down under Theresa May and David Cameron, almost 5,000. The officers who have resigned are now telling me that they do not want to carry out checks and searches for the simple reason that they will not have the support of their bosses, they will not have the support of the courts and they will be thrown under the wheels of a bus because if They get a controversial complaint and gosh, I've arrested people with knives, it never looks good.

I've done stop and searches, sometimes they're loud, sometimes they're quite violent, um, but it's a job that the police do, so no one. want to join the police more, the Police Service has become the SES of society and going back to the original point you were making is that two of my family, two police officers, are injured, they may be seriously injured and What are they doing? Were they men and women who got up today, put on their uniform and know the Florida they know, know the abuse and insults, get the threats they get, still get in their cars and still rush to the scene? and why did they do that?

Because they are between good and evil, right and wrong, and unfortunately some of them pay the ultimate price for trying to protect society. Norman, it's terribly sad and as you say, we're waiting to hear his condition, um, but Norman. Tell us how, as a police officer, you confront a man who is armed with a knife like the one we have seen in the images circulating there. A man wielding a rock. It's your job. Every day you are called to a scene. a man wandering the streets stalking prowling the streets with a weapon like that how do you deal with it when you're not well armed?

I will give you a brief scenario when I was a Serbian police officer, it was the early hours of the morning. he was unarmed uh he just had a bat and CS spray uh he didn't even have a St V and uh a robber an armed robber had robbed three houses in Chelsea and if someone had bothered him there's a chance he would have been murdered because you don't You're not wearing a knife to commit a crime if you are not prepared to use it well along with other colleagues we met, so we were chasing the guy.

It was dark, it was early morning. I was a very fast runner in those days. I was in the car from my area. I joined the chase. I caught up with the suspect. I didn't know he was armed, although he only carried out three armed robberies and in the dark, while trying to arrest him, he pulled out a blade that sank deep. my chest wow and the devastation it causes is huge people think police officers are these brutes that stop black people who have nothing better to do than Nick Motc but do you know what we really have nothing better to do than attempt? and protect the public and some of us never leave the Police Service without being wounded in body, mind or spirit.

I still cut myself, I carry those scars to this day. I don't even look at my chest. Norman, that's an incredibly powerful story you share with us there. Um and all I can really say is thank you for his service, thank you for what he's done to keep the people of this country safe, Norman Bran,

former

police officer.