The trade Union representing the Dutch police force, ACP, has demanded an independent inquiry into three unrelated cases where officers who were still undergoing training either killed themselves - or, in one specific case, a young woman - using their police weapons.

Chairman of ACP union Gerrit van de Kamp was responding to the death of a policeman in the northern corps of Groningen. Officer-in-training Friso Wouda, aged 30, was found dead on Saturday afternoon in a hotel in the seaside resort of Zandvoort, some 30 kilometres outside Amsterdam. “I really don’t know what to say, it just took the wind out of me,” said Mr van de Kamp.

This is the third instance of suicide among apprentice officers using their own weapon since December. But the police force does not intend banning trainees from keeping their police weapon at home.

The ACP chairman says it’s more important to look at how problems can be detected at an earlier stage and whether the recent spate of suicides is something specific to the police force, or whether it’s a wider trend in society as a whole.