“It’s very rare for a lone male officer, not in uniform, to be making stops on their own with lone females. It can happen. It does happen. But what you can expect in those circumstances is very quickly for other colleagues to come and assist. I know that male colleagues will be reaching out if they find themselves in that scenario to get their colleagues to come and join them. You shouldn’t have to do anything extra to ensure your own safety. That is on us and we will take those steps. Of course if you find yourself in a situation where that doesn’t happen, you can seek help or can request that the officer who’s dealing with you to ask somebody else to attend, or to make contact with the control room, but we will take the initiative to do that and to give you that reassurance and keep you safe.

“In most circumstances where we stop somebody, we will choose to stop them in an area that helps them be safe, but also helps officers be safe as well. Of course, we don’t know what we’re about to encounter when we stop a vehicle so we will want to do that in conditions that are safe for everybody. You don’t have to get into our police vehicle when we do routine procedures – you can stand outside if you feel more comfortable. Typically, if you are offered to get into a police vehicle, in my experience, it might be because it’s pouring down and we want to give you shelter, or you might be in a dangerous position on a fast road for example and officers are trying to give you protection, but if you want to stand somewhere else in a safe space that’s absolutely fine too.

“In relation to handcuffing, we only handcuff for our safety and your safety – circumstances where we think somebody’s in possession of a knife or a bladed article or drugs for a drug search. Again, in those sort of scenarios officers will be very quickly seeking assistance from their colleagues and are unlikely to do any of that on their own. It’s not part of our practice if we’ve made an arrest and taken somebody into custody to transport that person on our own. We don’t do that, not least for police officers’ safety as well, so if you do find yourself arrested for an offence by a male officer on their own, they will be seeking assistance with transport into custody.

“In light of what’s gone on, I understand that people may be feeling nervous. It’s something that we’re all going to have to work through together because policing relies entirely on the trust and confidence of our communities. Without that trust and confidence, policing is so much more difficult to do, which is why we’ve got to accept the damage that’s been done by Wayne Couzens and it’s our responsibility in policing to regain that confidence.

“In relation to questions around the seriousness of offences such as indecent exposures – we know that they can be a precursor to sexual violence, and we do take them very seriously. Earlier in the year when we did a survey across Surrey which received well over 5000 responses from predominantly women and girls in our communities about where they feel safe. A theme that emerged was that often some of these scary and dangerous acts were not reported to us.

“I would encourage them to be reported because whenever a report like that comes in, we will want to look at the whole circumstances around it. We may have information and intelligence already in our system and you may have the missing piece of the jigsaw. We will look to put themes together where we can and we absolutely want to identify those offenders and intervene in their offending behaviour as you quite rightly identify, these can be pre-curate to much more serious offences.

“Sometimes such offences take place in particular locations that are felt to be dangerous in themselves and we will want to work with our local authority partners to make those areas feel safer too. So, there is a lot that we can do and if this has happened to you and you haven’t reported it then please consider doing so. You can do that anonymously through Crimestoppers if you prefer.