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UK: Shock and anger at the violent policing tactics used at the G20 Summit, by Trevor Hemmings

01 April 2009

The policing of the G20 Summit in London in April 2009 has been severely criticised following an allegation of manslaughter and 270 complaints of police assault. Part I of s report on what happened and its aftermath.

The London G20 summit of world leaders at the ExCel conference centre on 2 and 3 April 2009 was headlined as a platform for international cooperation in the face of global economic disaster. The “greatest gathering of leaders since 1946” [1] was estimated to have cost £19 million [2], less than a quarter of the cost of the 2005 Gleneagles summit, and a price apparently considered to be value for money by participants hoping to adopt a rescue plan for the global banking crisis. However some leaders, such Brazil’s President Luis da Silva, pointed out that it was the behaviour of western financiers that had brought the economy down in the first place. The free-market profligacy that brought the world to its knees was typified by the bonuses and pensions with which the world’s elite rewarded themselves: in the United States in 2007 Wall Street paid itself with more than $39 billion in bonuses and “light-touch” regulation was also the norm in the City of London. The divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots” was further accentuated at the summit by the leaking of a confidential Foreign Office memo on its preparations in mid-March, which argued that that the UK should focus on the 11 “priority” countries rather than the seven “tier two” ones, (Canada, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Indonesia, Australia and Argentina).[3]

As has happened at summits elsewhere in Europe, notably at the G8 in Genoa in July 2001 [4], the presence of so many world leaders assembled in one capital encouraged activists from an array of different causes to take to the streets. Also like Genoa, the London summit was heralded by dire warnings of violence that was intended to bring the capital to a standstill. From mid-March onwards media reports, many based on police briefings, warned that veteran anarchists were coming out of retirement while others invoked international extremists who were converging on London to riot:

Thousands of activists from across Europe were converging on London today. Anarchists from Italy, France and Germany are mobilising to disrupt the summit. Intelligence chiefs fear known agitators are arriving in London after a week of anarchist attacks in Italy.[5]

The free London Lite newspaper reported that bankers had been forced to employ private bodyguards while other city workers were advised “to stay at home, reschedule meetings and dress down”. Evoking the confrontational “Stop the City” protests of the 1980s, shop fronts were boarded up and meetings cancelled. [6]

With the looming media-hyped confrontation the Metropolitan police had little option but to respond to the stories it had placed in the public domain. It cancelled all officers’ leave for Operation Glencoe, “the most comprehensive security operation in a decade” (ibid), posting up to 3,000 officers across the capital supported by a similar number of CCTV cameras. The total cost of the operation was around £7.2 million, of which about £2 million were additional costs, such as overtime [7]. Six forces from in and around London were directly involved in the operation with support from another 30. The right to protest may be upheld as the cornerstone of British democracy, but when Metropolitan police Commander Simon O'Brien told CNN that his force was “up for it” he was making clear the security agenda had priority. His words were echoed by junior officers, who anticipated “going up against the scum of our society...” [8]

In the run-in to the Summit the brunt of the police operation had been felt by residents residing near the Excel Centre in Canning Town, who were advised to carry photo identification “to ensure they can pass through police roadblocks and access their homes” [9]. They “must carry two forms of ID, including one with a photo, to ensure only those who need to can get through roadblocks”. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty [10], questioned the Met’s authority to enforce the measure pointing out that: “The police don’t have the legal authority to require people to carry ID papers. If they are asking them to, they had better come up with some proper reasons.” [11] Residents also believed the move to be “a step too far”, asking why the police had to resort to imposing something so draconian?” A Metropolitan police spokesman insisted that the measures were necessary to ensure safety:

Naturally, we regret any inconvenience [but]…this is not any ordinary conference – half of the world’s leaders are coming to London (ibid).

Meanwhile groups such as Climate Camp were mobilising supporters using social networking sites and holding seminars to discuss how to defuse the predicted confrontational situations.

Financial Fool’s Day

On 1 April two major demonstrations took place. The first involved a series of marches by the G20 Meltdown coalition of anti-capitalist protestors starting from four London underground stations and converging at the Bank of England. Angered at the government’s bailouts of bankers, several thousand protestors lay siege to “the old lady of Threadneedle Street” and sometime around 1.30 pm windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland [12] were smashed and a handful of activists in balaclavas scrambled inside, throwing computer monitors and other pieces of office equipment outside. People were then tightly “kettled” [13] by the police for an hour or more as the crowd grew restless. A large number of people alleged that they had been assaulted by police officers, including the Liberal Democrat councillor, Greg Foxsmith, who attended the demonstration as a civil liberties lawyer. He says that he was attacked by a balaclava-clad riot police officer after he witnessed him assaulting an elderly man [14]. One unnamed protestor echoed the widely-held belief that police forces are much more interested in protecting the interests of big business than the civil liberties of protestors: “A lot of fuss has been made about a few broken bank windows, but what about the police using truncheons on protestors.”

The second major action on Financial Fool’s Day was the Climate Camp. A coalition of environmental activists defied police barricades to set up their fourth [15] camp outside the European Carbon Exchange (ECX), off Bishopsgate, under the banner of “Stop carbon markets because nature doesn’t do bail outs”. The Camp pitched tents and set up stalls with bunting and banners around midday and it had an enjoyable festival atmosphere throughout the day, despite some arrests and harassment by police units. Just after 7pm, police streamed into tthe camp wielding batons and shields. People held their hands in the air chanting “this is not a riot”, but many were nonetheless assaulted. Around 2,000 people were kettled and remained so for between five and seven hours, only being released in the early hours of the morning when public transport had ended. Video footage shows 24-year old Alex Kinane being hit in the face by an officer wielding a shield while other footage shows a man being punched in the face by a policeman [16]. Some of the officers alleged to have used excessive force could not be identified because they had removed their identification numbers, a longstanding, but increasingly common occurrence, particularly among officers from the Territorial Support Group (TSG). Around 9.30 pm, Section 14 of the Public Order Act was imposed to shut the Climate Camp and people gathered at the North end of Bishopsgate were forcibly moved with baton charges and police dogs. Protestors, many of whom by now wished to leave, and those who had simply been caught up when the kettle was imposed, were eventually released around midnight, nearly five hours later; it was shortly before 1 am before the police cleared the road of the remaining protestors [17].

Demonstrators said that they were detained for hours in order “to be taught a lesson” or punished by being made to miss the last public transport. Journalists also remonstrated at being detained and refused permission to leave. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) received 270 complaints against the police, 60 of which concerned allegations of assault. The Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, David Howarth MP, questioned the legality of the kettling tactic. [18] However, Metropolitan police Commander, Simon O’Brien blamed small pockets of “criminals” for outbreaks of violence. Speaking at New Scotland Yard he pledged to track the ringleaders down, claiming that some of them had been placed under helicopter surveillance as they left. An estimated 93 people were arrested over the course of the day [19].

Demonstrating respect for human rights?

On 14 April the Climate Camp Legal Team, which is comprised of volunteers who provide information on legal rights, train people to act as legal observers and collect evidence during protests, published a report that focused on the policing of Climate Action’s Camp in the City [20]. It did so in the context of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights report on the policing of protest, entitled Demonstrating Respect for rights? A human rights approach to policing protest,[21] which was published a week before the G20 protests began. The Committee found that although there are not “systematic human rights abuses in the policing of protest” in the UK, the government should “protect and facilitate the opportunity for people to protest peacefully”, emphasising that:

To fail to do so would jeopardise a number of human rights including the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of expression.

Among its concerns, which should be addressed by legal and operational changes, was that police are too heavy-handed in dealing with protests, harassing and intimidating people.

The Committee’s report had also criticised the misuse of legislation against demonstrators, calling for tighter restrictions to prevent the misuse of anti-terrorism laws. It also heard evidence that the use of officers in riot gear could "unnecessarily raise the temperature" of crowds, making conflict more likely and for similar reasons police should not be using Taser stun guns at peaceful protests. The Committee said police Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) were too heavy-handed with journalists reporting on demonstrations and the National Union of Journalists presented evidence showing that officers took part in "intrusive" filming of its members, denying them access to protests, refusing to recognise press cards and even assaulting them. The report highlighted the policing of protesters at an earlier Climate Camp in Kent, where 1,500 officers, including riot police, dealt with only 1,000 protesters. Committee chairman Andrew Dismore MP said:

The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right and one that the state and police have a duty to protect and facilitate.

Police witnesses responded to the committee by insisting that they were already acting lawfully and a Metropolitan Police statement placed: "Human rights and the right to protest… at the heart of our policing philosophy.”

The Climate Camp Legal Team (CCLT) report compares the policing of the Climate Camp in the City with the recommendations of the Joint Parliamentary Committee. They observe that the Parliamentary Committee remark that human rights law meant that “police should be exceptionally slow to prevent or interfere with a peaceful demonstration simply because of the violent actions of a minority”, is a statement that is “difficult to reconcile with what happened at the Climate Camp”. The Legal Team also noted the Committee’s concern that “protestors have the impression that the police are sometimes heavy-handed in their approach to protests”, observing: “If the report had been written a couple of weeks later following the G20 protests, we think the Committee would have shared the impression of protestors.” Finally, the CCLT takes issue with the Committee’s failure to find any systematic human rights abuses as a result of the policing of protest in the UK:

Our experience is that there are systemic problems with both the policing of protest and with the accountability of police for their actions.

The team makes six main points based on its observations of policing at the G20 protests and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights report. In summary they are:

Police accountability: There is no effective mechanism to hold police forces accountable for their actions and the means to challenge the actions of individual officers is rarely effective.

Legal recourse for protesters: As the Joint Parliamentary Committee also acknowledged, there are “significant practical limitations inherent in the legal process” for protestors.

The police complaints system: The IPCC is ineffective and is in need of reform. “How the IPCC addressees what may be increasing policing controversies associated with protest movements will be a critical test of whether it is worth preserving or is a failed model.” The Legal Team also expresses significant concerns that in reality we have a national police force overseen not by parliament, but by an unaccountable private body – The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

The criminalisation of protesters: “Exercise your right to protest in this country and you will at best be treated as a potential criminal, and at worst as a potential terrorist, and policed as such. You will be photographed and filmed by Forward Intelligence Teams… You will be stopped and searched and pressured into giving your name and address. You will be corralled by police in riot gear, your freedom of movement restricted, and in physical danger from officers’ ‘losing it’ and the use of disproportionate force to restrict protest.”

Police spin: Police briefings before the protest “talked up” the potential for violence at press briefings. At the Climate Camp satellite television vans were moved on before the significant escalation in police violence occurred. An embedded television camera crew entered with riot police during police raids on squats where protesters had been sleeping. Police media spin is not compatible with any reasonable notion of institutional accountability in a democracy.

Climate activists demonised as domestic extremists: There are worrying signs the police are identifying Climate Camp activists as the next generation of domestic extremists, a new enemy within for which the legal translation seems to be “terrorists”.

The police assault and death of Ian Tomlinson

Newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson (47) collapsed and died after he was caught up in the policing of the protests as he walked home from work in the City of London around 7 pm on the evening of 1 April. The Metropolitan police promptly released an inaccurate statement saying that officers attempting to resuscitate him had been forced to move him when they were pelted with missiles by protestors. The effects of this statement led to reports that he had died “after bottles were thrown at him and he collapsed” [22]. The IPCC was informed of Mr Tomlinson’s death, but did not take over the investigation into the death for a further week, on 8 April. Ian Tomlinson was the first person to die at a heavily policed demonstration since the IPCC assumed responsibility for investigating deaths which involve police contact in April 2004.

Ian Tomlinson’s final movements that evening have been reconstructed by Inquest [23], which is working with Mr Tomlinson’s family. In summary, he left Monument underground station after finishing work at about 7pm to return home. On route he was blocked by lines of police officers at least twice, and probably on three occasions, before he made his way up Royal Exchange. Video footage on Channel 4 News showed him standing still as a line of policemen, including Metropolitan police officers, officers from the TSG and City of London dog handlers, swept down Royal Exchange from Threadneedle Street. Tomlinson is shown walking away from the police with his hands in his pockets [24]. Police dogs can be seen to go for him at least twice, before an officer in a riot helmet holding a raised baton approached and struck him before violently pushing him to the ground. No officers went to Tomlinson’s assistance but a bystander did help him to his feet. The video footage shows Tomlinson staggering away from Royal Exchange Passage along Cornhill clutching his side looking dazed. Photographs show that he did not walk far before collapsing.

It was later reported in The Times that the officer being questioned over Mr Tomlinson’s death had previously been accused of using unnecessary force against a motorist. Despite this, he was able to join Surrey constabulary and later transfer to the Metropolitan police “because the unresolved disciplinary issue was not flagged up during vetting.” [25]

In its report Inquest draws “evocative and disturbing parallels” between the death of Ian Tomlinson and that of the unsolved police killing of Blair Peach 30 years ago, (on 23 April 1979). [26] Blair Peach died of head injuries while demonstrating against a provocative National Front march in Southall, west London. No police officer was ever charged over his death despite witnesses who claimed to have seen him being hit over the head by members of the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group (SPG), the predecessor to the TSG. There is also well documented use of excessive force by officers from the same group while policing the Southall demonstration. The investigation into Blair Peach’s death was conducted by Commander John Cass but has yet to be made public [27]. Inquest points to the “supervision and tactics of the TSG” at the G20 demonstrations and the lack of accountability of the “investigation processes following deaths in police custody” as areas that parallel the cover-up that followed Blair Peach’s death. They therefore call for the IPCC investigation [28] into the death of Ian Tomlinson to be fully compliant with article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Footnotes

1. The Independent 28.3.09.

2. Evening Standard 10.3.09

3.. The Independent 14.3.09

4. For Genoa see Yasha Maccanico in Statewatch Vol. 17 no 2, Vol. 18 nos 1 & 4, Vol 19 no. 1

5. Evening Standard 30.3.09

6. London Lite, 26.3.09

7. Metropolitan police “Operation Glencoe policing and security for the G20 London Summit”
http://cms.met.police.uk/news/updates/operation_glencoe_policing_and_security_for_the_g20_london_summit

8. See CNN website
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/26/g20.protests.police.london/index.html. The Times newspaper (1.4.09) captured the gung-ho spirit in quoting one anonymous officer on a police internet forum: He talked of “going up against the scum of our society, the immature thrill seekers and anonymous cowards who hide in large crowds with scarves over their faces chanting meaningless slogans to hurl whatever is at hand at the lines of police deployed to maintain order.”

9. The Independent 31.3.09

10. Liberty website: http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/

11. Evening Standard 30.3.09.

12. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7977489.stm

13. A controversial and widely criticised police tactic whereby officer’s coral and forcibly prevent people from leaving an area. Within the kettle there are frequent complaints of excessive police violence; when people are allowed to leave they are often photographed and have their identification details taken. Kettling is indiscriminate, often trapping passers-by, tourists and journalists alike. It is also used as a punitive measure, for instance when those corralled are refused access to toilets and other facilities, or when people are deliberately detained until after public transport has closed.

14. Foxsmith has written to the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stevenson.

15. Previous Climate Camps had been held at Drax, Heathrow airport and at Kingsnorth power station in Kent. For more on the Kingsnorth camp see Panorama “Whatever Happened to People Power” (BBC-1) 6.7.09. Here too police attempted to manipulate the media regarding protester violence, claiming that 68 officers were injured in violent confrontations; in reality only four cases involved contacts with protestors. Website: http://climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/468

16. See Panorama: Whatever Happened to People Power (BBC-1) 6.7.09.

17. Climate Camp Legal Team Demonstrating Respect for Rights?: the policing of the Climate Camp in the City of 1 April 2009 18.4 09. http://climatecamp.org.uk/themes/ccamptheme/files/report.pdf

18. Ibid

19. BBC News 2.4.09

20. Climate Camp Legal Team Demonstrating Respect for Human Right: the policing of the Climate Camp in the City of 1 April 2009 18.4 09.

21. Joint Committee on Human Rights Demonstrating Respect for Rights? A human rights approach to policing protest. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200809/jtselect/jtrights/47/47i.pdf. The Joint Committee is made up of 12 members appointed from the House of Commons and the House of Lords who heard evidence from civil liberties groups, from members of the police force and the government. See Max Rowlands in Statewatch Vol. 18 no 4 for an overview of this report.

22. BBC News 2.4.09. The Evening Standard was even more graphic: “Police had come under a barrage of missiles yesterday as they tried to save the life of 47-year old Ian Tomlinson. Officers were hit by bottles thrown from the crowd and were forced to carry Mr Tomlinson to a safe location…” For eyewitness testimony rather than police spin or tabloid fiction, see Indymedia’s witness statements:
http://london.indymedia.org.uk/articles/1019

23. Inquest “Briefing on the death of Ian Tomlinson” (2009), Appendix 1. The briefing is available as a free download:
http://inquest.gn.apc.org/pdf/INQUEST_ian_tomlinson_briefing_jun_2009.pdf

24. Channel 4 News,
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/tomlinson+death+missing+moment/3076487

25. Times 6.7.09

26. For more information on Blair Peach’s death see Jenny Bourne “The political legacy of Blair Peach” IRR website, 23 April 2009. http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/april/ha000025.html

27. Inquest and the friends and family of Blair Peach have been campaigning for the release of the report for 30 years. In June 2009 at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority the Commissioner agreed to the publication of the report into the death subject to any legally necessary redactions.

28. The IPCC investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson is expected to be published in 2010.