SMT Online Web Exclusive: News Analysis

SMT Online G20 video and photos scrutinised by IPCC

24 Apr 09

As part of its high profile investigation, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has been poring over photographs and video originally published to support SMT Online’s coverage of the G20 protests in a bid to pinpoint any wrongdoing by officers.

By Brian Sims

The images reproduced on SMT Online are unique in that our photographer was the only one allowed access to the prime vantage point atop The Royal Exchange. As a result, our images – and accompanying video footage – perfectly capture the controversial ‘kettling’ technique used by police officers on the day in question.

IPCC investigator Neil Buchanan has been in contact with SMT Online this week, while members of the investigation team spent close on four hours grilling our photographer and taking statements from him in relation to what happened in Threadneedle Street on April Fools’ Day.

Subsequent to this activity, further video footage - viewable at the bottom of this article - has been made available to SMT Online. To be blunt, it doesn’t look too pretty as far as the police service is concerned.

This footage was first broadcast on Sky News on Wednesday of this week under a 24-hour exclusivity deal negotiated with our photographer, but what was reproduced ended up being a truncated version. Today, we have uploaded the footage in full such that we can be seen to deliver a balanced account of policing at the G20 protests.

As you will see, there’s footage of a police officer appearing to punch a protestor full in the face for no apparent reason, while another officer elbows an individual in the jaw (the latter incident appearing to be very deliberate indeed). Further footage shows an officer with his hands at either ends of a baton and using it to ram people in the face.

Caught on camera: policing on the frontline

Elsewhere, another officer has two hands on a baton and is seen to repeatedly ‘stab’ a protestor in the chest (and with quite a bit of venom). One officer grabs a protestor by the hair and hauls the individual towards the floor (again, apparently for no reason), while another uses his riot shield to hit people rather than for its intended purpose (that of acting as a defence mechanism).

We at info4security and SMT Online wholeheartedly endorse the views expressed by The Security Institute’s chairman Mike Bluestone. In commenting on our original coverage, Bluestone states that there mustn’t be a trial by media on this incident. That’s wholly correct. There shouldn’t be, as we don’t know what all of the circumstances were on the day, both before and after incidents that took place. This information is for the IPCC to uncover and submit for scrutiny.

However, having seen the footage we’ve added to the site today, there doesn’t appear to be very much of a grey area as far as these particular incidents are concerned.

50 complaints from the public and rising

At present, the IPCC is said to be dealing with more than 50 complaints from people claiming they were either victims of police assaults or at the very least bore witness to them.

The Commission’s chairman, Nick Hardwick, has warned MPs against a collective ‘hand-washing exercise’ if officers used approved techniques taught in training to deal with the hostile crowds and then the results of that training appeared to be “ugly” on television.

For his part, Denis O’Connor – Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary – has termed the actions of police officers caught on video lashing out at G20 protestors “unacceptable”.

O’Connor is also seriously concerned about the use of kettling tactics. “If you’re pregnant, if you’re dragged in on your way to work, if you’re elderly or have simply had nothing to eat or drink all day and then you’re effectively imprisoned for hours on end, difficult consequences will arise from that.”

These comments were made as O’Connor gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday. That session – presided over by Labour MP Keith Vaz and Company – effectively kick-started O’Connor’s review of current police tactics employed to deal with demonstrations and disorder. The final report and full analysis is due in September.

Indiscipline must be eradicated

Following on from the events of 1 April, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has pledged to crack down on lack of discipline. Another of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s favourite sons, he’s quoted as saying that any officer “caught deliberately concealing their identification number to commit crimes will face dismissal”. Indeed, Sir Paul is said to be furious about this matter.

As far as SMT Online is concerned, we believe it’s utterly unacceptable for officers to remove ID numbers from their uniforms. The whole point of British policing is that individual officers are individually accountable. They’re licensed by the State to use reasonable and necessary force on behalf of the State.

That licence is a very precious and important thing, and most certainly does not extend to elbowing people in the face and ‘stabbing’ them with carbon-fibre batons.

Important not to prejudice the investigation

As you would reasonably expect, the country’s top policeman has been quick to defend the “overwhelming majority” of the thousands of officers involved in policing the G20 Summit protests, but he too has admitted grave concern at some “disturbing video images”.

Stephenson said: “There’s a pressing need to find out what circumstances underpinned the events captured on camera. In saying that, it would be entirely wrong to prejudice the investigation at this stage.”

Speaking as part of last night’s Question Time debate on BBC1 (broadcast live from Ealing), Philip Hammond – the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury – opined that no amount of taunting from protestors could ever justify police brutality. SMT Online wholeheartedly concurs with this view. There is a line drawn for acceptable police behaviour, and that line must not be crossed.

The use of what appears to be excessive force in the video footage to which we have been privy needs to be eradicated. Police officers may be enforcers of the law but they are not above that law, and must never, ever escalate matters beyond the boundaries of legality.

It must be said that, to many, the police service now seems so intent on ‘winning’ confrontations of any kind that it’s in grave danger of losing the public’s goodwill and long-held support.

Regaining the general publics’ confidence

Also taking part on last night’s Question Time was John Denham, now the university and skills secretary but formerly the Home Office minister responsible for overseeing security and policing matters. Hence, there was much interest from us in what he had to say.

Denham commented: “Over the years, the police service has carefully developed the tactics it uses to deal with protestors, but those tactics are now being shown to be controversial. To regain the publics’ confidence, the police service desperately needs to revisit those tactics and change them where necessary, such that incidents like those that occurred on 1 April do not happen again.”

Claire Fox – director of the Institute of Ideas – mentioned that, in some quarters, the Ian Tomlinson incident has been likened to “The Rodney King Moment”. Fox stated: “The whole situation [surrounding what happened on 1 April] was whipped up in advance by the national media. The G20 protestors had no serious political aims. They were just louts out to cause trouble.”

Self-reverential and self-satisfying

To the left of Denham sat the quite brilliant and highly articulate historian David Starkey, with whom chairman David Dimbleby became so expasperated that, at one point, he told him to shut up.

Starkey recalled the early years of British policing, suggesting that today the Metropolitan Police Service is “far too self-reverential and self-satisfying”.

Vince Cable – the hugely impressive Liberal Democrat spokesperson on economic affairs – also added his considerable intellectual weight to the debate.

“We have a good police force,” opined Cable. “What’s happening is that the police service is being blamed by the public for the restrictions placed on civil liberties due to the terrorism legislation and other elements of law brought in by the present Government. There’s now repressive legislation in place that attempts to prevent people from protesting.”

That’s true. The Government has given the police service the job of policing – and, by association, enforcing – regulation and legislation devised in Westminster that has become massively unpopular with the majority. Inevitably, in many peoples’ eyes this has merely served to politicise the very function of policing.

A politicisation not helped in the least by Sir Ian Blair’s apparently slavish devotion to his namesake’s wishes during days of yore.

Relationships between the Met and the public

During the past five-to-ten years, there has been a discernible sea change in the relationship fostered between the Metropolitan Police Service and the public whom it’s designed to serve.

As stated, the principal reason for this of late lies in the extraordinarily wide powers anti-terror legislation has afforded the Boys in Blue. In truth, it’s barely an exaggeration to suggest that the ordinary officer can now arrest someone almost on a whim by quoting some section or other of recent law.

Very few police officers break ranks and go beyond that which is acceptable, but squads of heavily armed and protected police personnel represent little other than the perfect challenge for knuckle-scraping ‘protestors’.

Let’s not give those protestors the ammunition. Whatever happened to the ‘traditional’ police uniform? Now, there’s the black pseudo-paramilitary outfit, the flak jacket, the nightstick, CS spray, baseball caps and (very soon) the Taser. All a touch Robocop, isn’t it? Indeed, there’s an argument that says the standard uniform is now more riot police than friendly neighbourhood officer.

Traditional mission of policing

The photos and video we’ve seen at info4security and SMT Online leave us very concerned indeed for the traditional mission of policing.

What the IPCC absolutely must do is everything in its power to help prosecute the bad apples in the barrel.

On the flip side of the coin, all of us have a duty and a responsibility not to tar every police officer with the same brush. It remains all-too-easy to criticise those officers, but we should all remember it’s far less easy to be one of them.