Convicted police murderers will face minimum whole-life sentences under new proposals to be announced by Home Secretary Theresa May at the Police Federation annual conference in Bournemouth on Wednesday.
May will tell officers that: “To attack and kill a police officer is to attack the fundamental basis of our society,” according to extracts of the speech released by the Home Office.
“We ask police officers to keep us safe by confronting and stopping violent criminals for us. We ask them to take risks so that we don’t have to.
“That is why I am clear that life should mean life for anyone convicted of killing a police officer,” she added.
The current minimum sentence for a police murder, of which there have been 12 since 2000, is 30 years.
The Police Federation said it backed “any move that means a true life sentence will be applied to anyone who murders a police officer.”
Police murderers should get whole-life sentences: May
