Retired police officers set to appeal against pension cuts

Nov 1 2009 by Amy Hunt, Sunday Sun

APPEALS of retired bobbies who have seen their pensions slashed are due to start next month.

At least 27 former cops who suffered injuries in the line of duty are set to appeal a decision to cut their pensions.

They will go to the Police Medical Appeal Board to argue Northumbria Police should not have reduced their payments.

The pensioners claim Northumbria Police used new Home Office guidelines as an excuse to make cuts.

This guidance was given out in 2004, allowing forces to limit retired officers’ pensions once they reached 65, with the aim of creating a more consistent approach to payments for injured police officers across the country.

Yet many of the country’s 43 police authorities, including the Metropolitan Police, decided not to act on the guidelines.

The Northumbria, West and North Yorkshire and South Wales forces have made the cuts.

In a meeting in December 2007, Northumbria Police said it made savings of more than £75,000 when it reviewed 11 high-band injury awards the year before and claimed it could save £1.2m by 2010/2011 by extending cuts.

In total 538 injured Northumbria officers who put their lives on the line and were hurt on the job saw their pensions shrunk, some by more than half.

A group of ex-officers formed Police Pensioners For Justice, a support group to help some of the older and more vulnerable officers affected to pursue their appeals.

They say they are given hope by cases from other forces where cops have been found to have a case and have won their appeals.

But officers will have to travel to Leeds for their appeals to be heard, some of them from as far away as France, Ibiza and Cyprus.