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Ken Jones
Chief Constable
Sussex Police
Police Headquarters
Malling House
Lewes
BN7 2DZ
22 March 2004
Dear Mr Jones
I wrote to you on 8 March expressing concerns about the appropriateness of TETRA as the communications system of choice for Sussex Police. I appreciate that you must be very busy, and no doubt receive many more pressing letters than mine on this same issue. Reassuring you once more of the support you have among the people of Worthing for a worthy and best-value modern communications system, I, and those I represent in this matter, are still interested in your response to the points I made.
In the meantime, a small matter was drawn to my attention that I feel should be addressed. There is a new O2 TETRA mast in woodland where my sister walks her dogs. To her surprise it bears a prominent notice, that people with heart pacemakers fitted should not go near the mast. Now the specification of that mast is the same as the one activated at Woodside Road, Worthing, in the middle of residential housing. No such warning has been given to anyone here, in any form. We must, nevertheless, assume that the same risk pertains. I have therefore addressed the following points to O2 Airwave, and will be forwarding the same to the Health and Safety Executive. I address them to you because this is to become your system, and your employees will become just as involved as members of the public. Indeed, by using the system, they will themselves directly involve further members of the public. These were my questions, and we are very interested in your immediate response:
- At what distance can this notice safely be read by a person with a pacemaker fitted?
- If this does present a risk, why are residents near such masts not told or warned about this danger?
- Does this danger also pertain to walkers who frequent the path running alongside the High Salvington mast (for example)?
- If, as O2 indicates in its factsheet, the safest place is beneath a mast, before the beam touches ground, why do we get headaches standing there, and why this particular warning? Does the same apply to TETRA handsets?
- Is there any relationship between this RF EM interference and that indicated on our (as O2 says, defective) TV equipment? Are pacemakers equally defective?
The following points are particularly pertinent to you:
- Can O2 categorically state that on approaching a police officer for help, such a person with a pacemaker will not be endangered by the use of a handset to call for assistance, since the officer will not know this?
- Are all officers and police staff with their own such pacemaker devices being warned not to use the equipment, go near the masts or handsets, or users of the same, or in the case of having relatives and family with such devices, not to take handsets into the home?
- Are officers to be advised that especially when called to assist at incidents involving older people, they should not communicate using TETRA handsets (including calling for an ambulance for an unconscious patient or victim) until they have ascertained with some degree of confidence that a heart pacemaker is not present?
These observations have only been made in relation to pacemakers and, we understand, apply only to certain types. We shall not stray here into the issue of interference with other medical equipment such as used at RTAs, for example.
Nor are we here considering why residents living in proximity to TETRA masts all over the UK, and notably here in Worthing, have been exhibiting symptoms of ill health coincident with the switching on of base stations. Also, a number of instances of induced epilepsy have also occurred elsewhere in the country where TETRA handsets have been switched on in the home, and this risk has received no warning notice. This alone makes us concerned for your own staff, some of whom are our neighbours. These observations are necessarily short term, and the long-term effects are as yet unknown. We find it unethical in the extreme that the Home Office should require TETRA equipment to be used in public throughout the UK without consent, whilst undertaking a 15-year study of safety with a group of police officers.
There does seem to be a contradiction here about assurances of safety, in the messages and documents from O2 Airwave and the Home Office.
It raises the serious point that Chief Constables, wherever masts are sited, are legally required to have proof from the Airwave operator, that the Airwave operator has sufficient public liability insurance to cover any potential claim for any health damages due to TETRA. Have you received such proof from O2 Airwave?
yours sincerely
Andy Davidson
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