Third Student Demo Pre-Emptively Threatened With Kettling
I’ve seen what I’ve found to be a surprising amount of support for the police’s tactics in dealing with last week’s student demonstration against the proposed massive hike in tuition fees and university budget cuts. Today, before the third demonstration has even started, we have learned this from the Guardian’s Matthew Taylor:
In Trafalgar Square there is a handful of soggy protesters and a few journalists. The plan today is that students will arrive here from 11am and then at about 12noon march down to Parliament Square – where there will be speeches and an “open mike”.
They had agreed with police that the demonstration would finish at 3pm but interestingly some of the shopkeepers around Parliament Square say they have been told by the police that the students will be “held” there until 6pm.
Students who are setting up in Parliament Square are furious: “The police already seem to have decided to kettle the protest despite what happened last time and despite agreeing with us this week that the demo should finish at 3pm,” said Maham Hashmi, from Soas (School of Oriental and African Studies).
Let me repeat: this is a tactic which has been decided before anyone has even arrived. It’s not based on any other factor such as the age of the participants, the behaviour of the protesters or any other criteria. It’s sheer bloody intimidation for its own sake. What on earth do the Met think will be the response to this?
Students vs the Met: Round Three
Bob Broadhurst (the man responsible for the G20 policing disaster) is back on his high *ahem* horse today:
Commander Broadhurst said today: “The Met will always respect the right to protest peacefully, but I would urge all those considering taking to the streets of London again this week to think carefully about the consequences of engaging in violence and disorder.
“This behaviour doesn’t help anybody, least of all those who have a genuine and peaceful point to make. We will always work with protesters and consider their needs and aims, but we have to balance these against the needs and rights of other Londoners.
“While protesters should be able to march peacefully to highlight their concerns, they should not be able to seriously disrupt the lives of Londoners and prevent them going about their daily business. People have a right to go to work, go shopping or sight see without fear of violence and disorder.”
He continued: “We are gathering intelligence from a wide variety of sources and developing an appropriate and proportionate policing plan for the day of action on Tuesday. This plan will be flexible and be able to adapt to whatever unfolds on the ground.
“Again I would urge those planning to protest to get in touch and work with us to make sure that the point they want to make on the day is not lost in a sea of violence and disorder.”
The Met rarely respects the right to protest peacefully. They certainly didn’t last week, when they incited the very limited violence which did take place by students, were guilty of the rest themselves and then lied about it. Given his and his TSG goons’ behaviour last week, does he really imagine for a moment that the people organising tomorrow’s protest could ever consider making their names known to him, let alone communicating with him in any manner? Give me a break. Film maker Ken Loach argues that the function of the police is to enforce the status quo through violence. From the G20 through last week’s violence, manipulation and lies, Broadhurst has shown that that’s quite true for at least a corner of the Met. That leaves the situation quite ominous for the student protest tomorrow, and I’m quite concerned for people’s safety, despite supporting what they’re doing wholeheartedly.
No Horseback Charge? Really?
The Metropolitan Police would like you to think that the police violence was necessary in order to counter #dayx #demo2010 student violence on the protest this week against massive tuition fees rises and university budget cuts:
“We have been going through a period where we have not seen that sort of violent disorder,” [Commissioner Sir Paul ] Stephenson said. “We had dealt with student organisers before and I think we based it too much on history. If we follow an intelligence-based model that stops you doing that. Obviously you realise the game has changed. Regrettably, the game has changed and we must act.”
In recent years the Met had reduced the numbers of officers deployed to tackle demonstrations, he said. “Regrettably, we are going to have to review that. We are going to have to take a more cautious approach.”
Check out my blog post before this one, about the events that actually happened on the day. The violence began in response to pre-emptive police kettling, first on a large scale, and then an increasingly restricted one, and that’s not even taking the #baitvan police van into account. Stephenson also said that there was no horseback charge against the students:
Sir Paul Stephenson faced the Metropolitan Police Authority panel at City Hall today to respond to criticism that police charged student protestors on horseback, and were heavy handed during student protests in Westminster yesterday.
Sir Paul Stephenson said that there was “no reference at debriefing or record” of charging by any officers on horseback.
Sir Paul Stephenson in his briefing at City Hall described the actions of the students protestors as “quite shocking” and the scenes were “very violent scene, and very difficult”.
The Guardian reports an entirely different reality.
So for all their claims about having learned their lessons after the G20 disaster, all the old tricks are back. Pre-emptive violence and then lying about it is just the tip of the iceberg I’m sure, compared to what’ll happen next. They got away with it with Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson – why should they stop there? The Met have clearly realised their big problem on those previous two occasions was an inability to spin the situation to their advantage – now they have a Tory government who think they’re doing a ‘good, professional job’ in attacking children on horseback, and kettling them for hours, at night and in freezing temperatures. The next four years are going to be very dangerous indeed for anyone who dares to rebel against the ConDem coalition.
Back to G20 Policing
Laurie Penny reported directly from the London #dayx #demo2010 second national student protest against the proposed massive hike in university tuition fees and budget cuts:
Outside Downing Street, in front of a line of riot police, I am sitting beside a makeshift campfire. It’s cold, and the schoolchildren who have skipped classes gather around as a student with a three-string guitar strikes up the chords to Tracy Chapman’s Talkin Bout a Revolution. The kids start to sing, sweet and off-key, an apocalyptic choir knotted around a small bright circle of warmth and energy. “Finally the tables are starting to turn,” they sing, the sound of their voices drowning out the drone of helicopters and the screams from the edge of the kettle. “Finally the tables are starting to turn.”
Then a cop smashes into the circle. The police shove us out of the way and the camp evaporates in a hiss of smoke, forcing us forward. Not all of us know how we got here, but we’re being crammed in with brutal efficiency: the press of bodies is vice-tight and still the cops are screaming at us to move forward. Beside me, a schoolgirl is crying. She is just 14.
Let me make this clear: children were being kettled. What do I mean by ‘kettled’? Here:
@PME200 To anyone not aware what “Kettling” is, it’s being trapped by armed police without food/water & being forced to piss or crap yourself. Nice.
Now why would the Metropolitan Police end up kettling children in freezing temperatures at night? It all seems to hinge around the attack on the police van:
Why was the van there, and was it there deliberately to draw out the violent protesters? Steven Sumpter believes so:
During the protests in London today the police stated that they had started “containing” the crowds after they violently attacked a police van. I contend that the van was deliberately planted in order to provide an excuse.
At around 12:30 I started watching BBC News which as showing live footage of the protests from a helicopter. The police were already blocking the route of the planned march with a huge amount of vehicles and offices. I watched that van be driven through the crowd from behind, angering all the people that had to jump out of the way. It was quickly surrounded by furious protesters and forced to stop. A little later, a few (unknown) people started to attack the van, trying to break the windows, roll the van over and paint graffiti on it. Some brave kids tried to stop the attacks, but were eventually pushed aside.
[But] there is something really interesting about this van.
- It has no number plates
- It is painted in the OLD livery of the Metropolitan police.
- It has been out of service long enough to get rusty.
He might be right. Emma Rubach offers the case of Canada’s G20 policing:
Protesters were led to or allowed to march or run past bait cars (police cruisers abandoned in the middle of Toronto streets) and one was definitely trashed and burned fairly quickly according to media reports. A man has been taken into custody.
The other bait cars were left mysteriously abandoned in the street for a long period. In one video peaceful protesters are seen sitting on a car and hanging around it, doing nothing violent at all. No police show up to claim it in a city downtown where you can’t walk down many streets without fear of search and arrest. Then the video shows a suspected agent provocateur wearing an expensive jacket appear. He jumps on the hood and bounces the car, asks a peaceful protester to move aside. Kicks out the windshield with a steel toed boot. He then goes on top and smashes the lights. People oppose him verbally, he studies his work from the street then others appear (rather shadowy in the video) helping him as he sets up the interior of the car. Likely for later burning. And it appears that the burning was set to be done from the inside. That gas tanks of these cars were likely left at the near the empty mark.
So it appears bait cars were placed, but they didn’t rely entirely on protesters to simply burn them. They had police agents on the ground to make sure it was done. Other activist video shows protesters or police agents dressed in black (it’s hard to be sure) setting up a couple police cars by slowly setting fires in their interiors. Again, the cars were simply left in the street as bait or decoys and no police attempt to save their own equipment. Whether police agents or protesters destroyed the cars, it makes little difference. There is such a thing as entrapment. If police know that by leaving a car abandoned in the middle of the street on a protest route will eventually lead to it being vandalized. They have in fact entrapped the vandal, who otherwise may have done nothing. In this case it is worse because with 20,000 police and riot police they could have easily pulled the cars out quickly.
In Toronto in times when people take to the streets, like soccer fans or whatever. Police do put cruisers at a slant to block the road and the two officers stand outside by the car. Never do they abandon it, and if they had to they would put in a quick call and the police cavalry would come to the rescue. At the G20 they just put cars out and left.
Look at how things do appear to add up. Here’s the van surrounded by the crowd:
And here’s a little evidence of agents provocateurs:
@simoncollister Just seen plain clothes cop get himself out of the kettle. Agent prov?
But what of the rest of the crowd? Alex Thomson adds another crucial perspective:
The word from protesters in Whitehall was that the police left their transit there as “bait” for the protest to turn nasty. The reality of it is that it became surrounded by the march and a number of officers were lucky to get out without serious injury.
Never mind this debate though. What I saw perfectly encapsulates today: a group of students, so young as to still be in school uniform, surrounded said van and persuaded the half-hearted and under-equipped would-be attackers to leave the thing alone.
As far as I am aware it is still there with a new gloss of grafitti and various swear words. But it has not been burned. Your average west Belfast teenager might look upon all this as the rather genteel affair that in truth it was.
Here are the kids who stopped the attack on the van:
Yet the police kettled (and attacked) them all:
@UKuncut We are cold, tired, hungry and being illegally held against our will. This is not justice #ukuncut #demo2010
@new1deas Police detaining students/schoolchildren for 4 hours pre-emptively, not allowing them to move.
@NeilAFM2011 Officer U2128 kicking 15yr old girl caught on camera. Chant of “your going on YouTube” #demo2010 #dayx
@MelodyShine Jeez did I just see right – very young girl hit over hands, hit around face and pushed back and forwards by police?#demo2010 #london
@CarolineLucas Just raised point of order in HoC about kettling of schoolchildren for hours today in freezing cold, asking for Home Sec be questioned
@PennyRed Kids streamuing through double line cops, yelling ‘let us through! We have the right to protest!’ Police kidney punching a child #demo2010
@Penny Red Just got hit in back of head by cop fuyck fuck #demo2010
For the record PennyRed is the Laurie Penny whose report I’ve quote from at the top of this post. Given the evidence, what possible justification could there have been for such a severe response? The Met said:
“The containment continues in Whitehall to prevent further criminal damage,” the Met said in a statement.
So it looks pretty likely that they set the van up for attack, might well have provoked darker elements in the crowd to attack it, then giving them justification (in their eyes) to attack back and kettle everyone. Kettling has been judged (domestically) to be legal, but the ECHR has yet to rule on whether or not it breaches human rights law. Given that peacefully protesting children were held for hours, into the night, and in the freezing cold, you can’t help but wonder what the final ruling might be. Aside from that, the Met’s tactics were utterly counter-productive:
Research into how people behave at demonstrations, sports events, music festivals and other mass gatherings shows not only that crowds nearly always act in a highly rational way, but also that when facing an emergency, people in a crowd are more likely to cooperate than panic. Paradoxically, it is often actions such as kettling that lead to violence breaking out. Often, the best thing authorities can do is leave a crowd to its own devices.
Laurie Penny offers a positive perspective on the civil engagement of the protesting kids nonetheless:
But just because there are no leaders here doesn’t mean there is no purpose. These kids – and most of them are just kids, with no experience of direct action, who walked simultaneously out of lessons across the country just before morning break – want to be heard. “Our votes don’t count,” says one nice young man in a school tie. The diversity of the protest is extraordinary: white, black and Asian, rich and poor. Uniformed state-school girls in too-short skirts pose by a plundered police van as their friends take pictures, while behind them a boy in a mask holds a placard reading “Burn Eton”.
“We can’t even vote yet,” says Leyla, 14. “So what can we do? Are we meant to just sit back while they destroy our future and stop us going to university? I wanted to go to art school, I can’t even afford A-levels now without EMA [education maintenance allowance]“.
But the Met, having completely bungled their response to the previous protest, seem to want to make it clear they don’t want a repeat. Led this time by the infamous Bob Broadhurst (who was responsible for their disastrous G20 effort), the only logical interpretation of their tactics was that they terrorised the kids deliberately, having generated an excuse to get away with it in front of the mainstream media and in the face of social media’s even closer view. And why (apart from restoring some wounded pride)? Take a look at the political response to yesterday’s protest:
Michael Gove, the education secretary, has urged the media to deny violent student protesters the “oxygen of publicity” as he called for the “full force of the criminal law” to be applied to activists “smashing windows” to make their point.
Gove evoked the language of former Tory premier Margaret Thatcher as he made clear his fury at demonstrators involved in skirmishes as thousands of students took part in demonstrations staged around the country today in protest against higher tuition fees and university budget cuts.
Gove has said he won’t budge at all on the tuition fee hike, and now has the advantage of the police trying to crush student resistance to his policy, supported by a Home Secretary who has no problem whatsoever with their violent, unjustified behaviour. As at G20, there was a political strategy here; the Met’s behaviour was no accident. Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has today said:
He added that, in the future “we are going to be much more cautious. We are into a different period I am afraid. We will be putting far more assets in place to ensure we can respond properly. Essentially the game has changed”.
and by all accounts I’ve seen completely misrepresented the Met’s response to distressed, kettled protesters:
Sir Paul acknowledged that letting people out from the cordon last night was “frustratingly slow” but “water and toilets were requested and delivered”.
Spin and cooperation with the government like that sets a chilling precedent for the cuts and price hikes to come.
You Know What I Want, Nick?
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has asked us to tell him what laws need repealing:
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He’s a brave man, I’ll give him that. But the answers are there in front of his face. Let’s start with the case of Jules Mattson:
On Saturday 26 June, photojournalist Jules Mattsson, who is a minor and was documenting the Armed Forces Day parade in Romford, was questioned and detained by a police officer after taking a photo of young cadets.
According to Mattsson, who spoke to BJP this morning, after taking the photo he was told by a police officer that he would need parental permission for his image. The photographer answered that, legally, he didn’t. While he tried to leave the scene to continue shooting, a second officer allegedly grabbed his arm to question him further.
According an audio recording of the incident, the police officer argued, at first, that it was illegal to take photographs of children, before adding that it was illegal to take images of army members, and, finally, of police officers. When asked under what legislation powers he was being stopped, the police officer said that Mattsson presented a threat under anti-terrorism laws. The photographer was pushed down on stairs and detained until the end of the parade and after the intervention of three other photographers.
Now I know Jules. He’s a good kid and a superb, passionate photographer, and this is is just appalling. Want proof? He recorded it:
The debate about the Metropolitan (and City) Police’s abuse of Section 44 has been waged many times and the arguments have been made more times than I can be bothered to think. But it’s now, once and for all, conclusively been ruled in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights:
In January 2010 the European Court held that section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (the broad police power to stop and search without suspicion) violates the right to respect for private life guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights (Gillan and Quinton v. UK4158/05 [2010] ECHR 28 (12 January 2010)). The claimants received £500 each by way of compensation.
The European Court has now rejected the UK’s application to appeal to the court’s Grand Chamber, meaning that the decision is final. This leaves stop and search powers in further disarray. The Home Secretary has already announced an “urgent review” of the powers after the recent admission by the Home Office that thousands of individual searches had been conducted illegally.
It’s clear that Section 44 has to go, but the risk remains that Clegg uses this scheme either to get the country to vent about laws they don’t like, or simply to delete specific laws without confronting the trends and behaviours which led to them in the first place. The cops who attacked Jules Mattson didn’t just cite Section 44 to try to stop him taking perfectly lawful photos – they made all sorts of garbage up in order to intimidate him into not taking photos. There is an institutional prejudice within the ranks against photographers, which was channelled by Section 44, and which would be much harder to root out and stop. New Labour made it abundantly clear they didn’t care one iota about the Met’s excesses. Time will tell if Theresa May cares any more, and this is what I want Nick Clegg to understand and tackle, more than anything.
De Menezes Family Condemn Ian Blair Peerage
(cross-posted from Liberal Conspiracy)
by Chris Barnyard
A spokesperson for the J4J (Justice For Jean) campaign last week condemned the decision to give former Met Police chief Ian Blair a peerage as an “insult”.
This seems like a final flourish of a discredited Parliamentary system handing out tawdry awards to political allies and cronies. Actions like this only reinforce the impression that politicians remain detached from the views of ordinary British people.
Jean Charles De Menezes was shot by Met Police officers in 2005. An investigation later showed the Met Police repeatedly tried to block the inquiry into his death.
Vivian Figuereda, cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes, who lived with him at the time of his death said:
We are disgusted at this decision. As Commissioner, we believe Ian Blair was ultimately accountable for the death of Jean, for the lies told and the cover up. He even tried to stop the IPCC investigating our cousin’s death. This is a final slap in the face for our family.
Blogger Kevin Blowe added:
Quite how someone, who deliberately delayed an investigation into a hugely controversial death and whose force was found to have made nineteen catastrophic errors that endangered the lives of Londoners, could ever been viewed as fit to serve in the House of Lords, or provide the benefits of his ’specialist knowledge’, is quite beyond me. Once again, it rather makes the case for the abolition of the Lords so that such blatant acts of patronage are no longer possible.
Indeed.
ConDemNation vs Brian Haw
Brian Haw’s arrest in Parliament Square put paid very quickly to the fantasy that the ConDemNation coalition would be any better on civil liberties than New Labour. So they’ve promised to get rid of ID cards – big deal. They’re still locking up asylum seekers’ children, they’re pushing ahead with Gary McKinnon’s extradition, they’re not moving away from control orders, and have no regard whatsoever for the right to protest. I’m sick of this already.
Colin Barrow, the Conservative leader of Westminster City council said:
As well as the disruption caused to ordinary workers and tourists who are prevented from going about their daily business and enjoying the Unesco world heritage site, the police have been diverted from policing local communities and tackling crime. It is clear that the present legislation is not working and new laws are required to ensure everyone can enjoy the square and give other groups the opportunity to legally protest there. New legislation is urgently needed to enable the police to intervene effectively in cases of prolonged demonstrations, or where there are real public order or nuisance problems. We need powers to regulate and police the square.
It’s a shameless attack on the right to protest of a man whose continuous presence shames the government, and who is disapproved of by the now lead governing party. It’s really simple. It’s not a public safety or health issue, this is political vindictiveness. New Labour restricted the right of protest of people they didn’t like, and now the coalition is doing exactly the same. No-one’s ability to protest has been infringed by Haw or the Peace Camp, there’s no public order or nuisance problem, and the police haven’t been diverted from anything. Barrow’s claims are a complete load of utter garbage, and nowhere does he acknowledge the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan.
From twitter:
STWuk Johnson says Parliament antiwar protest did “considerable damage”. Nobody mention “damage” of 1m dead in #Iraq and #Afghanistan. #brianhaw
hangbitch Such lies about Haw. He had a tiny camp that interfered with nobody. Thousands of Tamils managed to protest around him for weeks.
jackofkent I wondered if there were any good reasons to remove Brian Haw from Parliament Square; so I read around; and nope: they’re all bullshit.
The controversial SOCPA legislation was introduced largely to attack Brian Haw’s right to protest, and to remove an embarrassing, constant reminder of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from the government’s front door. Not only is there no indication of repeal or replacement of SOCPA but the strongarm tactics under Labour’s Home Office haven’t changed one iota. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Don’t expect much change under ConDemNation.
Speaking from outside court, Haw said:
“We’re there because our country is committing infanticide, genocide, the looting of nations.
“I’m determined to be there until they kill me. How much longer will that be?”
Metropolitan Police Attack Cameron Hater
It turns out the Metropolitan Police are a bunch of no-nonsense Tories:
A man who placed a poster of David Cameron containing the word “wanker” in his window has described how police handcuffed him in his home on election day, threatened him with arrest, and forcibly removed what they said was offensive campaign literature.
David Hoffman, 63, said police went “completely over the top” when they visited his home in Bow, east London, and demanded he take down the poster, which had been fixed to his window for weeks.
After he expressed concern at his treatment, Hoffman says, a local inspector told him over the phone that “any reasonable person” would find his poster “alarming, harassing or distressful”. The visit from police followed a complaint from a neighbour, who told Hoffman she found the poster offensive. The word “wanker” was printed beneath a photograph of a smiling Cameron.
Apparently he was handcuffed to ‘prevent a breach of the peace’ in his own home. Wankers.
The Murder of Blair Peach
The Metropolitan Police killed teacher/activist Blair Peach at an anti-fascist rally in 1979:
The anti-fascist protester Blair Peach was almost certainly killed by police at a demonstration in 1979, according to a secret report released today.
Documents published on the Metropolitan police’s website shed new light on the death of Peach, a 33-year-old teacher from New Zealand, whose death marked one of the most controversial events in modern policing history.
A campaigner against the far right, Peach died from a blow to the head during a demonstration against the National Front in Southall, west London.
A crucial report into the death, which Peach’s family have campaigned to see for more than 30 years, was finally released today. It said it could “reasonably be concluded that a police officer struck the fatal blow”. A police van carrying six officers was identified as having been at the scene when the fatal blow was struck.
Except of course this doesn’t tell the whole story. The Met want you to think that it’s all gone murky, that the killer can’t possibly be found and that releasing this report should draw a line under the matter once and for all. The evidence suggests otherwise:
• suspicions centred on the SPG carrier U.11, the first vehicle to arrive on Beechcroft Avenue, the street where Peach was found staggering around and concussed. [Commander John] Cass said there was an “indication” that one officer in particular, who first emerged from the carrier but whose name has been redacted from the report, was responsible;
• the criminal investigation into Peach’s death was hampered by SPG officers, who Cass concluded had lied to him to cover up the actions of their colleagues. He “strongly recommended” that three officers should be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, giving detailed evidence to show how they were engaged in a “deliberate attempt to conceal the presence of the carrier at the scene at that time”. None were ever charged;
So the Met knows who murdered Peach, and knows who covered it up? Can someone in the know explain why they aren’t being charged now? The problems continue:
It was already known that when Cass raided lockers at the SPG headquarters he uncovered a stash of unauthorised weapons, including illegal truncheons, knives, two crowbars, a whip, a 3ft wooden stave and a lead-weighted leather stick.
One officer was caught trying to hide a metal cosh, although it was not the weapon that killed Peach. Another officer was found with a collection of Nazi regalia.
In his report, Cass said the arsenal of weapons caused him “grave concern”, but claimed there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the officers involved.
A total of 14 witnesses told investigators they saw “a police officer hit the deceased on the head” but, according to Cass, there were discrepancies in their evidence and most could not identify the officer.
Insufficient evidence? What should we make of Commander Cass, when he’d seen what seems abundantly sufficient evidence, yet labelled it ‘insufficient’? And why then should it be abundantly clear to others who killed Peach:
The six officers with the SPG (the forerunners of today’s brutal and equally notorious TSG) are known to be Insp Murray, PC White, PC Richardson, PC Scottow, PC Freestone and PS Lake. Although the published version has been censored by the Met to obscure the truth it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that Blair Peach was killed by a blow from Inspector Murray’s police radio.
It is shameful that it has taken so long for the report to be published. It would be more shameful if the lessons in it – about honesty and transparency and about the dangers of creating an elite force-within-a-force like the SPG then and the Territorial Support Group now – were not recognised.
They’re still not being recognised, just as the lessons of the G20 protest last year haven’t been learned. Indeed just recently Sergeant Delroy Smellie was acquitted for his attack on a peaceful protester, following the Met’s killing of Ian Tomlinson. Not only was Smellie’s defence palpably absurd, but the reasons for his violent behaviour were never questioned. The current TSG might not be quite as bad as the SPG but having this elite force-within-a-force seems still to lead to a serious level of needless brutality, serious injury and death. And just what is happening about Ian Tomlinson? Any charges anyone?
British ‘justice’ – nothing changes.
Will the Met Always Get Away With It?
The first prosecution against the Metropolitan Police for the violence it perpetrated against unarmed, non-violent protesters at the G20 protests last spring has resulted in an acquittal:
A Metropolitan police sergeant who was filmed hitting a woman with a baton at the G20 demonstrations walked free from court today after a judge ruled he acted lawfully.
Delroy Smellie was suspended last year after video footage was posted on YouTube showing him back-handing a protester and striking her twice on the legs with his metal baton.
He was acquitted of assault by beating after a four-day trial in which his alleged victim, protester Nicola Fisher, declined to give evidence.
Smellie, from the Met’s territorial support group (TSG), a specialist public order unit, argued during his trial that he believed Fisher posed a threat to himself and fellow officers. He said he repeatedly struck Fisher, who was considerably smaller than him, after mistaking a carton of orange juice and digital camera she was carrying for weapons.
The district judge, Daphne Wickham, said there was no evidence that his use of the baton was not approved, correct or measured, adding that Smellie had a “mere seven seconds” to act, and other witnesses had feared for his safety.
Erm what? The TSG must be laughing themselves sick this morning. A big, burly TSG officer really, genuinely thought he had something to fear from a small, female protester attending a non-violent vigil for Ian Tomlinson? And a highly trained riot policeman really thought a carton of orange juice and a digital camera were weapons? Check out the video and see for yourself. Is there really any hope of justice for Ian Tomlinson?
Why Aren’t We Talking About Ian Tomlinson?
We’re talking about Delroy Smellie of course, but what about the unnamed officer who caused Ian Tomlinson’s death? What about the senior officers who gave the orders for such violent policing? What about their role in the attempt to cover up the cause of Tomlinson’s death, blaming the crowd rather than their own? Tomlinson’s wife, as the run-up to the first anniversary of his death approaches, has gone on the attack:
Last August the CPS was asked to consider whether the officer should be charged with manslaughter and, weeks later, Starmer promised swift action. “My view on these things is we should move quickly,” he said, adding that he hoped for a decision “in a few months”. CPS officials later told the Tomlinson family they could expect a decision by Christmas.
“Keir Starmer has let us down personally,” said Julia Tomlinson. “Why did he say there would be a decision around Christmas? Why are we still waiting? My kids need to move on from this. They’re left without a dad now and their lives have been turned upside down over the last year, especially the four girls. He doesn’t seem to realise the pain we’re going through.”
She added: “We feel like there was a cover-up from day one, and we didn’t see it because we were nervous about the police. Now a year on it still feels like all of that is still going on. If it had been someone on the street, a civilian, who had pushed and hit Ian just before he died, and it was all caught on video, surely something would have happened by now. The officer needs to go before a jury. Let them decide what should happen to him.”
She’s right of course. It’s cut and dried what actually happened, so why are they still waiting? On the other hand I would also suggest that the TSG officer who attacked Tomlinson wasn’t the only one who deserves to face justice for causing his death that day. Putting just that officer on trial would entirely miss the point that the Met’s behaviour that day was entirely normal, and the smears against the protesters and lies about Tomlinson himself a familiar refrain when the Met’s policing has caused death or serious injury. I’m still disgusted at how long Jean Charles de Menezes was blamed for his own murder, and how effectively the system closed ranks ultimately to justify it; the same result is likely here. De Menezes’ shooter has never been charged with a crime, despite committing perjury and murder, whilst his commanding officer was promoted. Julia Tomlinson really ought not to expect much better.
The Met Just Can’t Stop Breaking the Law
It was obvious to those of us who saw the video of this horrible confrontation between the Met and G20 protesters:
but it’s finally been ruled unlawful and the Metropolitan Police are going to pay a heavy price:
The Metropolitan Police are facing a compensation bill of £250,000, after admitting a raid on a climate change group the day after the G20 protests in London last April was illegal.
Police burst into the Convergence Centre in east London carrying taser guns, and handcuffed protesters face down.The Met Commissioner admitted it was unlawful to arrest, search them, and force them to be recorded on film, but he refused to apologise to the protestors.
They were non-violent and there were no reasonable grounds for suspicion, but the Met didn’t care last spring. They’d decided, without any evidence whatsoever that there was going to be violent trouble, and went as far as indicating their preparedness to be violent in turn. Look at the story of Delroy Smellie:
The sergeant at the centre of allegations of striking a female protester with a baton during a heated exchange at last year’s G20 protest said he was acting in “self defence” after mistaking a carton of juice and camera for weapons, a court heard.
Sergeant Delroy Smellie, 47, said he struck Nicola Fisher, 36, in a “pre-emptive strike” after seeing both items in her hands. The confrontation outside the Bank of England, on April 2 last year occurred during a vigil for the death of Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller who died after inadvertently getting caught up in a demonstration the previous day. Mr Smellie, an officer in the Met’s elite Territorial Support Group, is accused of common assault by beating. He denies the charge, and his lawyers insisted they would argue he was acting in self-defence.
A highly trained riot police officer mistook a carton of juice and a camera for weapons eh? Check the video out and decide for yourself if he’d decided on his course of action in defiance of the evidence in front of him. Now then, why aren’t we still talking about Ian Tomlinson, whose death was directly caused by Met brutality?
The Metropolitan Police vs The Love Police
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:
Poor Poor TSG
It beggars belief but the Metropolitan Police’s Territorial Support Group (TSG) are acting the wounded party in the face of attacks on them for their ultra violent behaviour at the G20 protests in April:
“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.
Police Misled Parliament About G20
Met Police Commander Bob Broadhurst, in charge of the disastrous G20 policing effort in April, appears to have misled Parliament:
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.
