SCOTLAND’s chief constable has suggested policing sectarian parades has become unsustainable amid heightened tensions.

Iain Livingstone yesterday told his ruling watchdog too many of his officers were being dragged away from their normal duties this marching season.

The chief and one if his deputies, Northern Ireland veteran Will Kerr, also railed against “utterly unacceptable” violence against police.

Earlier this month six parades - Republican and Loyalist - were banned by Glasgow City Council amid concerns over public safety.

The rare action came after clashes between rival groups on successive weekends - with officers among those injured.

Police Scotland mobilised 600 officers from across Scotland in Glasgow for one September weekend of marches and counter-protests. That cost more than £175,000.

Mr Livingstone on Tuesday told the Scottish Police Authority in Falkirk: “This has been demanding at an operational level but a strategic level as well.

“Is it sustainable? Not it is not. The capability of the single service comes in to bear. One of the officers injured was based in Dunfermline. We are drawing officers from right across the country away from their key role to respond to this.

“In terms of sustainability, it is a significant challenge. In terms of officer safety, there is a growing trend of attacks. There has been a significant increase in the west of Scotland in particular. They are up by more than a fifth.

“The recent manifestation of these marches, walks and protests seems to me to be part of a growing trend where our officers are coming under attack and it is utterly unacceptable. It is not part of the job.”

Referring to the last weekend in August and the first in September, Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr said: “Those are officers who are not involved in investigating - as we want them to be - domestic abuse incidents across the city and tackling drug and traffic offences, and dealing with normal police business.

Speaking of the first weekend in September, he said: “”So there are a whole range of opportunity costs which are attendant and added on top of that £176,000 pure cost of the operation itself.

“That being said, the chief has made it clear that to protect the city of Glasgow and its citizens we will deploy as many police officers as we need to do to make sure the city is both safe and feels safe.

“We have set up an investigation team led by a detective inspector - over 25 detectives are involved in that - who are robustly investigating all the offences involved.

“We have made 14 arrests so far. There will be a more arrested over the coming weeks. and months.

We will not accept that sort of behaviour. We certainly won’t accept assaults on our police officers.

“One of those arrests has been for the throwing of the pyrotechnic and one of our officers being injured by that.”

Police have also been hurt at football, including at Rangers Europa League home game against Feyenoord of the Netherlands. Mr Kerr listed problems: “We had six officers injured before and during that match.Throwing coins at officers. hitting them in the head and legs. Spitting on officers faces, kicking at their legs, throwing stones, one of which hit an officers in the face, punching officers to the face.

“That is just wholly unacceptable. It cannot be right in 2019 that we have officers deployed to protect their communities subject to that level of violence both at parades and associated protests or at football matches.”

Mr Kerr urged a sense of perspective. Citing his 28 years in Belfast policing, he stressed that only a tiny minority were involved in trouble.

But he added: “We do need to have a clear, hard look at ourselves as to whether that is acceptable. We should not be putting officers in that position in the first place.”