Subject: Pagan police want own group

Police officers who practise witchcraft are asking Home Office chiefs to let them set up a Pagan Police Association.

Officers are already given special dispensation to take eight Pagan holidays a year, including Halloween and the summer solstice, reports The Sun.

There are thought to be more than 500 Pagan police officers in the UK and they have now met with Home Office chiefs to push for an officially sanctioned support group.

Pagans worship nature and believe in many gods, and practices include witchcraft and druidism.

PC Andy Hill, of Staffordshire Police, a practicing Wiccan, or Pagan witch, has set up a website for Pagan police officers and their families.

He said: "This is nothing to do with black magic, or devil worshipping. Witchcraft is not the hocus pocus, puff of smoke, turning people into frogs stuff you see on the TV."

And PC Andy Pardy, of Hertfordshire Police, a Heathen who worships Norse gods such as Odin and Thor, said the public had nothing to fear.

PC Pardy said: "Paganism is not the new age, tree hugging fad that some people think it is and is not the clandestine, horrible, evil thing that people think it is.

"It involves chanting, music, meditation, reading passages and for Pagans the practices are seen to have the same power as prayer does for Christians."

A Home Office spokesman said: "It is down to individual forces to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate the religion or beliefs of individual officers, as far as operational requirements permit."