Met ‘stretched to the limit’ by bank holiday chaos
By Liz Stephens
The Metropolitan police have admitted they may be stretched to the limit by the demands of policing both the Notting Hill carnival and Climate Camp next week.
Up to 3,000 environmental protesters will set up camp somewhere in London from 26th August until 3rd September. However, the police say they have been unable to plan because representatives are unable to tell them where it will be.
The Climate Camp media team set out their reasons for this in an open letter to chief superintendent Ian Thomas, seen by politics.co.uk.
“The only secret is the location. There’s a simple reason for this: I’m afraid we just don’t trust the police. Why? Because it seems as though every time we have a protest, the police turn up and start hitting people. Look what happened at the G20,” the letter says.
The letter says previous camp attendees have suffered “violence, intimidation, theft, sleep deprivation and harassment, thanks to past examples of ‘pre-planned and proportionate policing operations’.”
It continues: “Judging from past experience, the best thing the police could do to ensure the health and safety of the public at Climate Camp 2009 would be to stay as far away from it as possible.”
Speaking at a press conference today, assistant commissioner Chris Allison said: “We’ve asked the organisers to at least let us know the borough.”
Mr Allison said the force would be adopting a “community-style” policing operation for the Camp for Climate Action protest.
“I am satisfied that most people just want to come to the camp because they are passionate about the cause,” he said.
However, he refused to rule out using the controversial tactic of ‘kettling’.
“Containment still remains a tactic the police force would use in certain circumstances,” he said.
The Met have also refused to rule out using Sky Shout – a loud PA system attached to the bottom of a helicopter which some climate activists claim was used by police as a method of sleep deprivation at Kingsnorth in 2008.
The force have raised concerns about the timing of the event, which coincides with the Notting Hill carnival, the biggest event in the Met’s calendar.
An extra 200 police from other forces across the UK will have to be drafted in over the bank holiday weekend to cope with the added burden of the two clashing events – at significant cost to the taxpayer.
However, Kevin Smith, an organiser at Climate Camp said: “If you look at what the cost to the taxpayer was for the ludicrous policing last year at Kingsnorth – that’s the real issue”.
Mr Allison refused to tell politics.co.uk whether there would be anywhere in London they were classifying out of bounds to the environmental protesters: “I don’t want to get into where they can and can’t go. There may be some places where we need to take action,” he said.
The camp organisers have said the event will take place somewhere within the M25, which leaves open the possibility that the camp may even fall outside the remit of the Met police.
Representatives from Climate Camp met with police today to discuss joint communications during the camp.
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