More than two police officers are assaulted every day in Sussex, figures obtained by The Argus have revealed.

Officers suffered 788 violent attacks last year and between April 2004 and April 2007, there were more than 2,500 assaults on police officers.

This is equivalent to every officers being assaulted at least once in the last three years.

MPs last night blamed alcohol fuelled violence prompted by the relaxation of licensing laws while rank-and-file officers called for tougher sentences for people convicted of attacks on the police.

Shadow Secretary of State for Justice MP Nick Herbert said: "I've no doubt there's a strong link with alcohol-fuelled violence, which is tying up police officers' time.

"The statistics remind people of the difficult and dangerous work police officers do. It's totally unacceptable there are so many assaults on police officers."

The scale of the problem emerges in figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Brian Stockham, chairman of the Sussex Police Federation, said: "The figures reflect a growing lack of respect for authority. We know this from colleagues in the teaching profession and the NHS.

"It's a sad fact of today's society. To be honest it shows the difficulty of the job our police officers do on the streets."

Nationally there was an alarmingly high number of assaults on police officers.

In 2006 alone there were 25.368 assaults on officers, which translated as 70 assaults a day or one every 20 minutes.

These incidents are placing a greater strain on the force as hundreds of officers take off sick days to recover. From April 2004 to April 2007, 987 work days were lost by Sussex police because of assaults.

Mr Stockham said: "It's the price the public has to pay for people doing a very difficult job that deserves better support. People think it's part of our job to get assaulted. It's not. The loss to the public when officers are assaulted is immense. They are not Robocop. It does hurt and it takes a while sometimes to recover. We deal with some colleagues who have been severely traumatised by being assaulted."

While assaults remain high, the number of assaults on officers appears to be falling.

From 2004 to 2005, 923 officers were assaulted, compared with 786 two years later.

The number of sick days resulting from assaults has also dropped from and 544 from April 2004 to 2005 to 109 from April 2006 to 2007.

Mr Stockham said harsher sentences should be brought in to restore respect for the police.

He said: "When I was younger and in the service it was considered if you assaulted a police officer, you assaulted society and lost your liberty. These days there are so many soft sentences for people who assault police officers that it doesn't act as a sufficient deterrent."

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