A FORMER Met policeman has called for officers to be given the choice of whether to be armed or not while on patrol.

Matt Johnson, who now lives in Monmouthshire after a 21-year policing career in London, believes that officers are “more at risk” than ever before following the recent terror attacks in London and Manchester.

He spoke about the three officers who had confronted the attackers on London Bridge as possessing the “natural inclination to want to get stuck in and help.”

“These uniformed bobbies waded into those guys with batons and you say to yourself as a copper, ‘I would have done that’,” said the 60-year-old.

“These terrorists were shot dead by armed response within eight minutes. They were been tackled by police a lot quicker than that but those officers were not armed and ended up getting very badly hurt.

“It would have been different if those first responders had been armed, the response in central London would have been two or three minutes. Inside eight minutes, a lot of damage can be done and a lot of damage was done.”

Mr Johnson admitted that were was a “huge difference” between response times in London than Gwent but that was “to be expected”.

Armed support units have been seen in recent weeks in Newport, with crews attending two separate incidents in the Shaftesbury and Duffryn areas last week.

Specialist officers were also deployed in the city centre last month following the Manchester stadium bombing as part of a UK-wide operation.

“We are still going to have police first responders attending incidents where they come under threat from people with deadly weapons and they do not have the backup to protect themselves,” said Mr Johnson.

“Officers ought to be given the choice whether to be armed or not, and that they should have the opportunity to be trained to a professional standard in the use of firearms, should they want to.”

Mr Johnson left the force in 1999 after suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which grew out of being at three separate terror incidents – including the fatal shooting of friend and colleague, WPC Yvonne Fletcher, in 1984.

He said that being involved in a violent incident creates an “immediate aftermath” in the minds of many police officers, adding: “You have a feeling of invulnerability provided by your uniform. When the Westminster stabbing happened, or when the two coppers were murdered in Manchester a few years ago, it brings home that you are mortal, and but there by the grace of God go you.”