AN unusual report was published yesterday on the TUC-organised march in London at the end of March. It came from Liberty, an organisation which has frequently been critical of the way in which the police have handled large-scale demonstrations of this kind.
On this occasion Liberty and the Metropolitan Police cooperated in observation of the march; Liberty had 130 legal observers, two of whom were in the Met's Special Operations Room while the others manned fixed observation points or mixed with the marchers. The report pays tribute to the TUC's organisation and, in general, to the way in which the police handled the event. However two criticisms will have to be taken seriously.
The first concerns the kettling technique of surrounding crowds of demonstrators so that they cannot move in any direction; the report says that the Operations Room was several times on the point of ordering this tactic but then changed its mind. The second criticism, surprisingly, is of the failure of police communications on several occasions. Cooperation of this kind between Liberty and other appropriate bodies and the police is to be encouraged at a time that the Met, in particular, is under pressure from several directions. Its commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, has been absent because of a broken leg for the past three months but his return to duty this week should stabilise the force.
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