At least one police officer a day has to seek medical treatment while on duty for injuries caused by those breaking the law, Police Union secretary Sandro Camilleri said.

This is in stark contrast to figures tabled in Parliament this week by Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela which showed that in four years there were 214 police officers injured on duty.

While the figures did not give an indication of what the injuries sustained by the officers were, Dr Camilleri insisted that these did not paint a clear picture of the reality experienced daily.

“Officers are scared and rightly so because we are having at least one police officer a day suffering some sort of injury,” Dr Camilleri told this newspaper yesterday.

He said that injuries ranged from bruises as a result of punches to bites that led to infections like hepatitis, as was the case with one officer last week.

This was in addition to the “barrage of verbal abuse” that police officers had to deal with regularly, he added.

Insisting that some officers would often complain that they feared for their safety, Dr Camilleri said this was of grave concern because it meant the job might not be done properly.  “I fear that an officer might be tempted to turn away in the face of a situation that requires attention. That is definitely not the way things should be,” Dr Camilleri added.

On what could be done to step up measures that further protected officers, Dr Camilleri said that harsher penalties for such assaults needed to be introduced as many were often getting away with very little punishment.

“Those assaulting the police are not afraid of a fine or some suspended sentence, which is what is being handed out at present.

“That is why we have been calling for body cameras, for instance. Police officers need to be protected or the work they do will suffer and that’s very worrying,” Dr Camilleri said.

Police officers have to deal with injuries received on duty regularly as a result of weak punishments for aggressors. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi