‘400 dead bodies’: Hurt, traumatised police call for compo

Hundreds of traumatised and injured police officers descended on the Western Australian Parliament yesterday, demanding compensation for injuries and trauma suffered on the job.

Western Australia is the only state in the country that does not offer worker's compensation for officers injured or who suffer mental breakdowns in the course of carrying out their duties.

"I stopped counting my dead bodies at 400. That's the dead bodies I physically helped other people pick up, or picked up myself," one former officer, Chris, said.

"In one night, I cut seven dead bodies from two traffic incidents in the outback."

Some officers said they had been forced to medically retire after years of fatal accidents, gruesome murder scenes and brutal attacks.

"Eventually, one day, you just wake up and you just can't get out of bed," another former officer, Carmen, said.

The state government has said it will introduce a redress scheme early next year to compensate medically retired officers.

Police Minister Michelle Roberts said the government acknowledged that "some officers feel abandoned" and had not been treated well in the past.

The opposition has also promised to back the plan, even apologising to the rallying officers for not acting while in power.

The rally also called for the classification of medically retired officers to be changed.

Currently it is a Section Eight, the same classification used for officers who are fired.

"They used that to get rid of medically retired police officers, something that was designed to get rid of crooked cops," former officer Joe said.