Britain's most senior police officer has said she wants the public to get involved if they see an officer "getting a kicking" and feel able to help.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told LBC that people filming attacks on police and mockingly posting the footage online was "absolutely awful".

She said: "Officers getting assaulted and people thinking that's funny and putting it on the internet - I think that's disgusting."

Last month a video of two officers being attacked in South Wimbledon was shared thousands of times after a passing driver stopped to film the assault and posted it on Twitter with the caption "south London at night...lol".

The officers had stopped a car and were attempting to arrest the three occupants, but one ended up being dragged around in the road while the other took a flying kick to the chest and landed feet from the path of a moving bus.

Eventually they arrested one of the men with the help of a passing motorcyclist.

Ms Dick encouraged members of the public to step in if they see a police officer being attacked and feel they can help.

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She said: "I think I want to live in a society, and I think I do live in a society, where people are active citizens.

"People stand up and say 'that's not right, don't do that' and on occasion, if they feel able, get involved and do something physical.

"You have to look at the circumstances.

"If there's a man pointing a gun at you we don't want you running at the man pointing the gun, that would be crazy.

"If you see an officer getting a kicking and you feel able to assist, absolutely I want my public getting involved, and we see people getting involved, including in some of those videos.

"We don't want people taking crazy risks, we do want people getting involved."

In the wake of the attack in Kingswood Road, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation Ken Marsh warned that officers might be forced to let violent suspects go.

He said: "Are we now in a society where, if we think we can't detain somebody, we just let them go? It's just not worth it.

"We're going to come to a point where we're going to start pushing messages out to our colleagues, 'Risk-assess it dynamically and, if you think you can't detain a person, just let them go'.

"We don't come to work to get assaulted, and if we're not going to be backed up in what we're doing then what is the point?"

The male officer suffered cuts and the female officer was left with head injuries after the assault.