Non-Subscriber Extract
You will sink if you cannot swim, potential new bobbies are told
By Tom Bovingdon and Royston Martis
06 August 2009
BEING able to swim could soon become an essential requirement for getting a job as a British bobby, Police Review can reveal.
The National Policing Improvement Agency is looking into giving chief constables the power to reject would-be officers who are unable to survive in the water.
Current Home Office guidance on police officer recruitment, which was issued in 2003, states that applicants 'should not be rejected because of an inability to swim'.
However, an NPIA spokesman said this week: 'We are currently revising the 2003 Home Office guidance on police recruitment standards to allow chief constables to make an assessment as to whether applicants to their force need to be able to swim to become police officers.'