Officers on the beat fear health effects of new Communications system - 'guinea pig' users in Lancs and Yorks report sickness

There is a growing fear among policemen and women delegates to this week's Police Federation conference that their urgent concerns about the safely of the terrestrial trunked radio system TETRA . Airwave, which the Home Office and commercial company mm02 are trying to steamroller through, will not be allowed to be debated

Promises by Federation Chairman Fred Broughton to call for a boycott of the system described by former Chief Government Scientist Sir William Stewart as "a hazard" -it emits low level radiation on a wavelength he mid his committee expressly warned should be avoided on safety grounds - if the Home Office failed to provide concrete scientific assurances over health effects are unlikely to be considered

The official response, which Broughton has had since January, and which independent radiation and TETRA expert Alasdair Philips* has informed the Federation is at best misleading and at worst 'plain wrong', has also been assessed by the independent physicist who was asked by Federation representatives last year to compile a report into wide ranging international research pointing to short teem ill health effects and, in the longer term, cataracts and tumours for users of. TETRA.

Barrie Trower,* whose report has had over 2000 hits on the Planning Sanity WEB site** to date, has also advised the Federation that the official scientific answers are unsatisfactory.

Additionally there were last month reports from Federation branches that police already using TETRA handsets and in-vehicle equipment were suffering skin complaints, nausea, sleeplessness, severe headaches, body heating and depression. Over 30 officers in Lancashire, which has had TETRA operating for fourteen months, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester (where its technical failure has caused chaos) have developed some of these symptoms. Currently these are the only areas where TETRA has gone 'live'.

Countrywide community campaigns against the siting of mast within yards of schools and homes, emitting this low 1evel irradiation non-stop, have delayed rollout of the network by up to 2 years in other areas. Families fear the health effects, especially on children (the signals at this dangerous wavelength mirror, lock onto and alter, human brainwaves, perhaps permanently.)

This week persistent rumours are circulation among regional Police Federation representatives that TETRA will only be allowed to be debated by the organisation's hierarchy AFTER the conference, behind closed doors at their Surbiton headquarters. A growing number of these officers say they are determined to force public discussion of the situation and not have it used as a 'trade off in current negotiations over pay and conditions with the Home Office.

A REPORT IN THE CURRENT EDITION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC HAZARD AND THERAPY refers to "claims that Home Office pressure to accept the proposed TETRA communications system may have led some senior police officials to try to use a report on its possible health effects "(the Trower Report) "... ...to barter it in exchange for better pay and conditions."

Barrie Trower insists he has been told by a senior police officer in the Federation that elements in the force's staff association never intended to use many pointers of long term effects, possibly even cancer, in his report …… and warnings TETRA must be halted from Alasdair Philips, who is now calling for urgent new research and a public inquiry into the system and its risks …..

"He called me because he wanted it to be known that many police are concerned that the health issue is in fact only being used by some in the Federation to trade in for better pay and conditions" said Trower. (Although the caller would not give his name Barrie Trower recognised him by his voice as a senior police officer present at a Federation committee meeting the physicist had over TETRA)

The TETRA situation has even wider implications since the Home Office announced on May 1^st that the Metropolitan Police force would take on 460 civilians to operate as the new community support officers initiated by Home Secretary David Blunkett. When they start patrolling London in September he has confirmed they will be issued with radios. To access other officers and the control centre these will shortly have to be TETRA handsets.

SCIENCE NOTE: Several research projects financed by the Home Office and the Department of Health are in progress but will not be completed until 2005. They relate to the BIOLOGICAL effects of low level radiation - effects acknowledged now by the National Radiological Protection Board which has said in print that the police provide a useful, stable workforce for study over radiation. (The Deputy chair of the Stewart Report on mobile Telephony and Health, chaired by Sir William Stewart which reported in May 2000, strongly recommending the frequency TETRA uses be avoided, has also said the police may be guinea pigs in this situation) The BIOLOGICAL effects are not yet measured by ANY regulatory body, or covered by rules, applying in the U.K. and Western Europe.

Lynne Edmunds: CfPS TETRA Contact 01453 872915

Chris Maile: CfPS Chair and Planning Advisor 0161 959 0999

Alasdair Philips (ed: correct): founder of Powerwatch safety pressure group - 01353-778814

Simon Best: Editor Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy - 090640 10237 0r 9127 3452744

Steve Pierce (or Pearce): A branch chairman 01392 452279 mob: 07970447451

Rod Allan: Bristol branch officer 01179454357

Andy Dunboitis: Health and Safety Officer Devon and Cornwall Police Federation 07980542029

Fred Broughton: Chairman Police Federation 02083992224

Sean Bullen: Snr. Federation Officer 02083351000

PC Steve Edwards, chair Lancashire branch, Police Federation, reports police motorcyclists have to turn off TETRA when driving, so out of contact with control room and colleagues, because of the danger of crashing brought on by TETRA's habit of 'spiking' - giving off extremely powerful bursts of high level electronic noise - almost certainly damaging to hearing.