Policing UK Demonstrations

The head of Britain's police chiefs has said that a scheme to monitor political campaigners may be scrapped as part of plans to make national policing more accountable.

In his first major interview since taking office, Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), acknowledged public disquiet over the way his units are gathering data on thousands of activists and said the scheme can go tomorrow , although he said some form of monitoring of protesters would need to continue, with independent regulation.

Senior police officers from all 44 forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are discussing his proposals. The discussions could result in Acpo becoming a statutory body, and could mean parts of the organisation, such as those responsible for monitoring so-called domestic extremists , are sponsored by the Home Office and ultimately answerable to parliament.

Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, is expected to call for major reform of Acpo's domestic extremism units in a major report into the policing of protest later this month. His inspectors believe Acpo has fallen victim to mission creep, taking on quasi-operational national policing functions that lack proper accountability.

Last month the Guardian revealed Acpo was running a £9m scheme to help keep tabs on political activists categorised as domestic extremists , a term with no legal basis. Three secretive units, which employ a staff of 100 and also advise companies that are the targets of protest, are controlled by Acpo's terrorism and allied matters division, which Orde described as a huge piece of business .

They include the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), a national database that stores information on thousands of so-called domestic extremists, information which is made available to forces.

Senior Metropolitan police commanders given the task of maintaining order at the G20 rally this spring did not understand their legal duties when they decided to contain thousands of protesters near the Bank of England, according to an analysis of the force's performance released today by the police watchdog.

Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, recommended a national overhaul of the police approach to demonstrations in a report today on the G20 protests, describing the current practice as inadequate and belonging to a different era.

He found Met commanders failed to consider human rights obligations which are relevant to the use of police force.

His 68-page report, Adapting to Protest, presented the interim findings of HMIC's review of public order policing, initiated after the demonstrations in the City of London on 1 April, which resulted in the death of the newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson and more than 250 complaints to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

All senior officers should from now on prioritise their obligation to facilitate protest, the report said, even when doing so could result in some level of disruption.

In a series of further recommendations, the report said police should strive to improve communication with protesters and the media and consider making officers wear badge numbers, which they are not statutorily obliged to do.

Consideration should be given to the impact of techniques adopted by riot officers that could cause serious injury, such as thrusting the sides of shields towards a protester's head, an action seen repeatedly in video footage circulated after the protests. Some tactics used in public order have been medically assessed, O'Connor said: That tactic has not been assessed.

The review stopped short of arguing that officers should abandon the use of kettling, arguing instead that containment methods should be modified to ensure officers on the ground can use greater discretion to allow peaceful protesters and bystanders to leave an area.

What the review identifies is that the world is changing, and the police need to think about changing their approach to policing protest, O'Connor said: We live in an age where public consent of policing cannot be assumed, and policing, including public order policing, should be designed to win the consent of the public.

Police must urgently review their tactic of kettling demonstrators, MPs investigating the G20 protests said.

In a damning report, the Commons home affairs committee says holding protesters in a small area for hours is unacceptable.

The first major review of the operation also said officers who work with their identity numbers hidden or missing should face the strongest possible disciplinary measures.

It concluded: Above all, the police must constantly remember that those who protest on Britain's streets are not criminals but citizens motivated by moral principles, exercising their democratic rights. The police's doctrine must remain focused on allowing this protest to happen peacefully. Any action which may be viewed by the general public as the police criminalising protest on the streets must be avoided at all costs.

Police have been heavily criticised for their conduct at demonstrations by 35,000 people during the visit of world leaders to London in early April.

Newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson died in clashes in Central London, after being pushed to the ground. The officer who allegedly shoved him has been suspended and could face criminal charges. Amateur videos appear to show protesters being pushed or hit by officers. More than 200 complaints of alleged police brutality at the protests have been made.

The report condemns the tactic of kettling, saying it is unacceptable to impose a blanket ban on movement. Frontline officers must be given discretion to allow peaceful protesters to escape highly-charged events, MPs said.

Committee chairman Keith Vaz said: It is clear that concerns about the policing of the G20 protests have damaged the public's confidence in the police, and that is a great shame. The ability of the public and the media to monitor every single action of the police through CCTV, mobile phones and video equipment should mean they take even greater care to ensure that all their actions are justifiable.

Update: Police floated impostor theory over Ian Tomlinson's death

2nd July 2009. See article from guardian.co.uk

A senior police officer who 'investigated' the death of Ian Tomlinson told his family that the officer who struck him at the G20 demonstrations could have been a member of the public dressed in police uniform.

The City of London police investigator made the comment at an emergency meeting with Tomlinson's family and the Independent Police Complaints Commission on 8 April, hours after the Guardian released footage showing the attack on the 47-year-old newspaper vendor.

A report on issues surrounding Tomlinson's death by Inquest, the group that assists the families of people who die in police custody, said yesterday that the suggestion he might have been attacked by an impostor gave the impression that the investigation was biased.

The City of London police completely failed to persuade the Tomlinson family of its impartiality, not least when they were told by an investigating officer that he was not ruling out the possibility that the alleged assailant may be a member of the public dressed in police uniform, it said. A source present at the 8 April meeting said the senior investigator's comment was made after he was pressed on how the identity of the officer could be established from the video.

The investigator agreed that the man who struck Tomlinson was likely to have been a police officer, but could not rule out the possibility that he was a member of the public.

The family believed this theory was fantastical. The video of the attack clearly showed that the officer who struck Tomlinson, who has since been suspended from duty and questioned under caution for manslaughter, was surrounded by more than a dozen police officers. The source said that the investigator claimed one possibility was that a member of the public had stolen a Metropolitan police uniform and equipment from the back of a police van before initiating the attack.

Scotland Yard was accused of misleading its own watchdog after an official report on the policing of the G20 London protests was said to contain false claims and gross inaccuracies.

The document, submitted to a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority yesterday, set out the police version of events during the demonstrations last month, and included claims protesters and independent observers said were misleading.

The Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, David Howarth, said the report was full of serious inaccuracies and questioned its claim that protesters were free to leave police cordons on the streets.

The report stated that whenever possible, people were allowed to leave the cordon around the Bank of England and the Climate Camp in Bishopsgate. But accounts from hundreds of people caught inside the pens for hours indicated police refused people permission to leave.

Other alleged inaccuracies in the Met's report included the claim that the Bishopsgate Climate Camp had blocked a four-lane highway, and that police had supplied water to penned people.

The report also said Climate Camp protesters had refused to divulge their plans at a meeting with senior officers on the eve of the rally. Howarth, who mediated the meeting, said protesters had been constructive in attempts to liaise with the police. It is time for the spinning to stop and for senior officers to ... take responsibility, Howarth said.

The report also said the Met was cooperating with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating a complaint relating to an alleged assault of a 22-year-old woman on 1 April. The IPCC has received 256 complaints relating to G20 demonstrations.