Watch these two videos of campaigner Charlie Veitch being stopped by the Metropolitan Police under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, despite having demonstrably not broken a single law. A comedian speaking loudly through a megaphone is now longer a lawful reason under the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling to stop and search people on anti-terrorism grounds, but watch the exchange. It’s quite revealing:
“They want to be seen as the best and they want to be the best – and of course when anybody challenges them about it, they feel it very personally,” he [Head of the Metropolitan Police Territorial Support Group, Commissioner Chris Allison] said.
They want to be seen as what they are… the overwhelming majority are highly professional cops who go out on the streets to protect communities.”
Pardon me for finding it absurd then that if they want to be seen to be ‘the best’ then they shouldn’t go around either wantonly beating unarmed, non-violent protesters or killing innocent passers-by. If the overwhelming majority of the TSG really are highly professional it seems rather odd that the reports of extreme violence from within their ranks should be coming out with such regularity, with so little then done to change the behaviour of the unit.
Commander Bob Broadhurst, who had overall command of the G20 policing operation, told the home affairs select committee in May that “no plain clothes officers [were] deployed at all” during the demonstrations in the City of London.
It has emerged that 25 undercover City of London police were stationed around the Bank of England to gather “intelligence” on protesters on 1 and 2 April. Broadhurst stands by the evidence he gave to MPs, claiming the deployment of undercover officers was unknown to him.
The proof is on a video on that page. Broadhurst can split hairs all he likes, saying that he was only talking about the Met, when the plainclothes police in question belonged to the CityPolice, but he still told parliament as the man in charge of the entire operation, that no plainclothes police were deployed when there were. And the City Police admitted it:
The assistant commissioner at the City of London police, Frank Armstrong, then told the MP that about 25 undercover officers were deployed during the protests.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the select committee, has written to Broadhurst suggesting the disclosure about plain clothes officers “contradicts” his evidence to MPs. Broadhurst claimed the officers filmed marching among Met and City of London riot police were “evidence gatherers” seeking to identify a certain protester.
It’s a terrible demonstration of just how inept he and the entire operation were that day, particularly when Armstrong continued to undermine Broadhurst:
[Lib Dem MP Tom] Brake said Broadhurst had “inadvertently misled” parliament, thus revealing a “startling lack of co-ordination” in the top ranks. “If plain clothes officers were only deployed to gather intelligence why is one clearly seen brandishing a baton?”
Was the cop in question in the video instructed to brandish that baton or was that rogue behaviour? The fact is the cops were out of control that day, pumped up largely by Broadhurst into an expectation of the need for violence which never resulted from protesters. Today’s report is sorely needed.
The TSG has been the subject of 5,241 allegations since August 2005. They include 376 allegations of discrimination and 977 complaints of “incivility”. More than 1,100 of the allegations concerned what members of the public said were “failures in duty”. However by far the largest number of complaints – 2,280 – were categorised as “oppressive behaviour”.
Just over 2,000 (38%) were “unsubstantiated” by the Met’s department for professional standards, while the rest were resolved at the police station, dismissed, discontinued or dealt with in other ways.
It left just nine complaints ’substantiated’ by the Met. The Met responded to the figures:
Senior Met officers say the TSG’s work, involving drug raids and demonstrations, means they are more likely to face complaints than other officers.
The reasons are clear: the commission continues to rely upon poor-quality local police investigations and adopts a decidedly “arm’s length” approach to its supervisory and management responsibilities. In consequence, it has failed to identify the inadequacies in those investigations at a sufficiently early stage to have any prospect of remedying the evidential deficiencies. This formal system is permeated by a lack of will, and the outcomes stand in marked contrast to the redress achieved by individual victims on their own account in the civil courts.
Compensation claims are a flawed and inadequate response and have proven wholly ineffective in the face of oppressive and discriminatory abuse of powers by the TSG. Officers continue to enjoy an effective immunity from criminal and disciplinary sanction.
Babar Ahmad’s attacker continues to get away with it, and Ian Tomlinson’s attacker has still not faced justice for his actions. For all the Met’s mealy mouthed words about changes in policing after the G20 fiasco, they’re still quite literally getting away with murder.
On the 16th of February, the Government passed a law (in the Counter Terrorism Act) making it illegal to take a photograph of a police office, military personnel or member of the intelligence services – or a photograph which “may be of use for terrorism”. This definition is vague at best, and open to interpretation by the police – who under Home Secretary guidelines can “restrict photography in public places”. We call for these vague restrictions to be lifted, as they can easily be mis-used by the police.
Photography and Section 58A of the Terrorism Act 2000
The offence concerns information about persons who are or have been at the front line of counter-terrorism operations, namely the police, the armed forces and members of the security and intelligence agencies.
An officer making an arrest under section 58A must reasonably suspect that the information is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. An example might be gathering information about the person’s house, car, routes to work and other movements.
Reasonable excuse under section 58A
It is a statutory defence for a person to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for eliciting, publishing or communicating the relevant information. Legitimate journalistic activity (such as covering a demonstration for a newspaper) is likely to constitute such an excuse. Similarly, an innocent tourist or other sight-seer taking a photograph of a police officer is likely to have a reasonable excuse.
The key element of the petition for me is ‘can easily be mis-used by the police’; the key element absent in the response is any acknowledgment of that issue. Narrowly defining ‘legitimate journalism’ as the domestic activity exempt from the legislation leaves out situations like Gemma Atkinson’s attempt to hold the Metropolitan Police to account for a wrongful search on her boyfriend, and fails to address the reality that the police are frequently misusing this legislation to get away with unlawful behaviour. Why should you have to be employed as a photographer in order to be allowed to take photographs of the police? The Met’s current guidance says:
Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel.
But it’s notable that they and the Home Office differ in their offical interpretation of this stupid legislation.
A police officer who allegedly struck a woman during the G20 protests in London a woman is to be charged with assault, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.
A CPS spokeswoman said Sergeant Delroy Smellie would be charged with assault of Nicola Fisher and he will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 16 November. He faces up to six months in prison if found guilty.
Smellie, a member of the Metropolitan police’s territorial support group, was suspended from duty two months ago after footage emerged of him near the Bank of England, apparently hitting Fisher, 35, with the back of his arm.
He was also shown appearing to strike her on her legs with a baton as she attended a vigil for the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who had died the previous day. She said the incident left her with severe bruising.
Of course he’ll get off, or he’ll become the scapegoat that his renowned colleague has long been expected to become. What must be remembered is that both officers, although behaving in an unacceptably (and unnecessarily) violent manner, were operating under the presumption that this was acceptable behaviour. Don’t forget how the force trailed its intention to be violent that day. The CPS can’t be allowed to get away with making this their only notable prosecution against the Metropolitan Police after their calamatous handling of the G20 protest.
Two police officers are under investigation after using anti-terror stop-and-search powers against a man and two young children in a south London street.
The 43-year-old man had his mobile phones, USB sticks and a CD seized by the officers, who were in plain clothes, and was asked to stand in front of a CCTV camera in order to have his photograph taken. The undercover Metropolitan police officers also took the man’s photograph with their own camera and searched the two children he was walking with – his 11-year-old daughter and his neighbour’s daughter, aged six.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said todayit would “manage” the investigation into the incident in July, meaning that an independent investigator will control the inquiry conducted by the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards.
It is unusual for the IPCC to manage an investigation into an incident of this kind, and the decision comes amid mounting concern over police use of stop-and-search and surveillance powers. The commission has received dozens of complaints relating to the use of stop-and-search powers, but the nature of this complaint is understood to have concerned investigators.
Jonathan Warren points to the Terrorism Act 2000, and proves this search was unlawful. I wonder if the IPCC will recommend charges be brought against the undercover officers or just hope that as with the Gemma Atkinson arrest, the initial outrage will die down and they can kick the complaint into the long grass!
Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEi) – the world’s biggest arms fair takes place next week at the ExCel convention centre in London. As you would imagine there are protests being prepared in advance, and Disarm DSEi, as Climate Camp before them, have refused to negotiate with the Metropolitan Police, given the force’s past repressive and violent behaviour towards them:
we are writing this open letter to explain why we do not feel able to enter into negotiation regarding the 8th September Disarm DSEi protest in the City of London.
The right to protest is one of the civil liberties we are supposed to hold dear, one of the civil liberties not afforded to many of the citizens of the countries the UK sells arms to. However, this right has to come without interference from the very state we are opposing. The UK government support the global arms trade, and it controls the police force –ensuring that the arms dealers reach their destinations and their investors are not embarrassed or inconvenienced will always come before allowing public dissent.
I would tend to agree with them. The police have been (and will continue to be) used to guarantee the interests of the state, rather than the interests of the civil liberties of individuals. Remember G20? Kingsnorth? Ratcliffe-on-Soar? So the Met behaved better at the Blackheath Climate Camp, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Their potential for another high profile embarrassment notwithstanding, there was no state interest being threatened – I’m sure not only their direct action in October, but today’s protest at Heathrow will have a very different result. The same is likely at ExCel next week, making them probably right in not talking to the Met beforehand.
You can follow Disarm DSEi’s plans and direct actions next week on their Twitter profile.
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