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The real face of British policing can be revealed today amid escalating attacks on forces across the country.

Pictures of the battered and bruised brave men and women who patrol the streets show the dangers they face every time they clock on a shift.

Critics have ploughed into recent PR stunts featuring officers painting their nails, walking in heels or going on dodgems.

But the service, and ex-officers, say the backlash is a smokescreen to take the focus away from spiralling crime rates and a shrinking, under-pressure workforce caused by Government cuts.

More than 40,000 officers and staff have been axed by the Conservatives over seven years, with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary warning in March of a “national crisis”.

The Met Police, the country’s biggest force, has admitted it will no longer investigate lower-level crime because of budget constraints, while a lack of detectives has seen nine out of 10 burglaries go unsolved nationally.

And crime figures last week revealed a 13% rise in all recorded offences in England and Wales, with even bigger jumps in the likes of knife crime, violence and sex attacks.

Officers have become increasingly vulnerable with falling numbers forcing them to go out to patrol or attend calls alone.

The Home Office say an officer is physically attacked every 22 minutes (24,000 attacks last year).

From its last welfare survey, the Police Federation, the police union, estimated an officer is assaulted in some way - verbally or physically - every four minutes.

Calum Macleod, from the Federation, said: “Let us be clear, the losers in this are the public whose service has been diminished.

“Police officers up and down the country are crumbling under the pressure, moral is at rock bottom and the Government needs to listen to halt this.”

Det Sgt James Dowler was ridiculed by some last week for taking part in a campaign to raise awareness of domestic violence by walking in high heels.

But just two years ago, Sgt Dowler had his eyes gouged and his face smashed as he tackled a gang of five single-handedly.

When he tried to call for back-up, the gang took his radio from him and tossed it away. Colleagues found the South Wales officer lying on the floor with his head in his hands and blood pouring from his face.

Sgt Dowler said at the time: “For the most part I felt fairly safe wearing the uniform but unfortunately I was wrong.”

PC Safia Finlow, a Response Officer in Torbay, Devon, tweeted a photo of herself last week with her leg in plaster after an alleged assault that left her inspector “truly appalled”.

PC Heather Caruana was left unable to see out of one eye after being headbutted in the face when responding to a domestic call-out.

The Surrey constable, 30, said: “We are all single-crewed all the time, which is quite dangerous. We are supposed to double up on night shifts but if there’s not the staff we just go out on our own.

“In Surrey, because we’re quite rural, back up can be 20 minutes away.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

“You feel sick when you hear someone has been assaulted. There is nothing worse than hearing someone screaming down the radio for help and you’re trying to get there as quickly as possible. It is just horrible.

“In this job you expect it at some point. You can’t go through this job and not be assaulted at some time, which is sad. It shouldn’t be that way.”

Labour’s shadow policing minister Louise Haigh said: “The reason we’re seeing rising demand on our police and rising crime is simply because the Tories have taken officers off the beat.”

It light of recent criticism, Merseyside’s Chief Constable Andy Cooke took to Twitter to joke: “Good job I’m not paranoid or I’d think there was an agenda.”

But ex-Met chief inspector Peter Kirkham went further and said: “The volume of this criticism always seems to rise when there is a rise in crime, an appeal for more funding, or a police pay decision pending, thus distracting the public from things the Government would rather not talk about.”