Sir Bernad Hogan Howe who has said that officers who fail to make the fitness grade should be given time to lose weight. File photo

People are fed up with fat bobbies ‘waddling down the road’, Britain’s top police chief admitted yesterday.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said there is no place on the thin blue line for unfit officers who arrive at crimes struggling for breath.

He said the standard of the new annual police fitness test is too low and that those who fail should be kicked out.

The Scotland Yard boss said: ‘It’s taken too long to get the annual test, but it will start to have an increasing impact.

‘For me, the standard is too low, I think it should be higher. It’s relatively easy to pass.’

The top officer added that those who fail to make the grade should be given time to lose weight and get fitter.

But he added: ‘If they don’t, then we haven’t got a job for them. I think you’ ve got a duty to your colleagues.

‘If they shout for help, they want fit people to come. They don’t want somebody waddling down the road who’s never going to arrive, and when they get there they’re out of breath.’

Sir Bernard, 57, was speaking ahead of a major fly on the wall BBC documentary about the inner workings of the 52,000-strong Met force.

The cameras, which followed officers and staff around for more than a year, revealed many overweight figures in uniform.

The top officer, a keen footballer and horse rider, boasted he recently passed the fitness test ‘very well with no preparation’.

Sir Bernard said his tall and slim build meant that policing was always at the back of his mind as he considered a career.

‘Probably on the grounds that tall, thin men become policemen, as I’m told, and small, fat people become butchers,’ he said.

Sir Bernard pointed out that there are officers aged in their 60s on the frontline ‘fighting 18-year-olds, strong, athletic people – that takes guts’.

His comments will raise eyebrows among senior police figures who have spent years haggling over the new mandatory fitness tests.

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Met chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (pictured) said there is no place on the thin blue line for unfit officers

They were introduced last September as part of a drive to improve the condition of frontline officers.

The original intention was that all staff from chief constables to Pcs would undertake the ‘bleep test’, which involves sprinting between markers at timed intervals.

Under proposals made in 2012, anyone who failed it three times could have had their pay docked and ultimately be sacked.

MET CHIEF: I WAS CALLED A BASTARD AS A CHILD Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said he endured being branded a ‘bastard’ as a child after being born to an unmarried mother. The Scotland Yard boss suffered painful slurs from those in 1960s Sheffield who believed his upbringing was ‘a bit immoral’. But he said he is proud of his mother’s achievements in the face of adversity that enabled him to rise to the top of policing. Speaking in detail for the first time about his tough childhood, Sir Bernard said he was called ‘illegitimate’ and ‘bastard’ by parents of his schoolmates. ‘It wasn’t something you shouted about,’ he added. ‘I’m proud of it now, and I’ m proud of what my mother achieved. ‘But it would be right to say at the time that it was regarded as a bit immoral, a bit off, a bit unusual. It wasn’t routine.’ Sir Bernard was brought up single-handedly by his mother Cecilia Hogan after she became pregnant and discovered her lover was already married. The senior officer said his father, Bernard Howe, played little part in his childhood and he can only remember seeing him ‘about five times’. Advertisement

But last year it was revealed that overweight officers would instead be offered an alternative which involves walking on a treadmill for just nine minutes.

The changes were made amid fears of legal action and compensation claims from officers pleading their treatment was unfair.

Results published weeks before the tests became mandatory last year showed that hundreds of officers failed.

The figures from 38 forces showed that out of 29,285 tests taken, 807 were failed, including 237 by men and 570 by women.

In the wide-ranging interview with the Radio Times, Sir Bernard also said he supports new measures to extend the surveillance powers of the security services.

He highlighted that police are forbidden from using common technology which pinpoints mobile phones in real time, including that used by cab companies such as Uber.

‘They will know where your phone is and where the taxi is and then put you together. But when people ring the police, we haven’t got a clue where that phone is,’ he said.

‘You may have been stabbed and expect us to come and help.’

Sir Bernard said the information can be obtained retrospectively after an ‘emergency application’ but cannot be accessed in ‘real time’.