G20 protests: how the image of UK police took a beating

G20 protests: how the image of UK police took a beatingThe death of Ian Tomlinson, videos of heavy-handed policing at the G20 summit, officers concealing their identity numbers, the Damian Green affair and last week's arrest of more than 100 environmental campaigners are just the latest in a series of troubling incidents that have seen an erosion of public confidence in the police. Tracy McVeigh, Rajeev Syal and Gaby Hinsliff reportIt has been a bad month for the thin blue line. A man dead and an officer facing possible manslaughter charges; a senior Conservative politician, arrested in November, is cleared, and now complains of blundering heavy-handedness; the baton-inflicted bruises of a young woman who alleges Taliban-style brutality; the Hillsborough anniversary reigniting a campaign for police handling of the disaster to be investigated.Throw in the furore over Monday's arrest of environmental campaigners before they had staged a protest at Ratcliffe power plant in Nottinghamshire, and the 145 complaints over the handling of the G20 protests in London earlier this month and it's no wonder that senior officers this weekend are calling a series of crisis meetings.But they may already be too late. Public opinion appears to be turning against Britain's police. Just as concerns over climate change and the global economy have been turning the most conservative of people into political activists, law-abiding people who have never had any experience in dealing with the police are now questioning their behaviour and the reach of their powers.It has been a deeply uncomfortable week for Sir Paul Stephenson, Metropolitan Police commissioner, forced to admit that video footage proving Ian Tomlinson, a 46-year-old bystander of the G20 protest march in London on 1 April, was attacked by police just minutes before he died, and the evidence that officers were concealing their shoulder identification numbers was "clearly disturbing". Tomlinson's family, who were at first told by police he had died of a heart attack, are now furious at being "misled" by the police after a second postmortem showed he had died from abdominal bleeding, which, for a heavy drinker like the newspaper vendor, can be triggered by a fall.The officer concerned has been suspended and could face manslaughter charges. In another video now online, another officer can be seen hitting Nicola Fisher, 35, with his baton after slapping her across the face. He has also been suspended from duty and Fisher's lurid-coloured bruises became front-page pictures.Stephenson, a police source said, is now on "the warpath". Yesterday the Independent Police Complaints Commission confirmed a third incident, involving an alleged police assault on a 23-year-old man, was now being actively investigated, while almost 150 other complaints were still being looked at.Since Tory frontbencher Damian Green was arrested for handling leaked Home Office documents, he has been inundated with letters from ordinary people with tales of police incompetence, neglect and error, stories of an outraged Middle England, whose faith in the system has been eroded by a brush with the law. Green said: "It's absolutely crucial that senior police look at the way they interact with normal, respectable people. The danger is of the police being on one side of the barricades and all civilians being on the other. The vast majority of people in this country want to be on the same side as the police and if that bond is broken the best traditions of policing by consent are broken, too."The IPCC had more than 28,000 complaints against officers in 2007-08. Just over one in 10 were substantiated: the most common complaint was neglect or failure of duty, such as not keeping victims informed, followed by incivility, while 14 per cent complained of assault.Nick Hardwick, chair of the IPCC, said the typical complainants were middle-class. "If you think the police are all bastards, you don't bother to complain because you think it will get you victimised," said Hardwick. "If you are Mr and Mrs Suburban who have a good view of the police and think they do a good job, and they stop you and swear at you, then you are shocked and you complain."After deeply damaging historical events, from the policing of the miners' strike to the Stephen Lawrence murder and the shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, trust in the police has recently been rising after a period of decline. But the British Crime Survey published in March found less than half of those questioned had confidence in the force's ability to deal with crime and antisocial behaviour. While researchers know that while people's opinion of the NHS goes up if they have recently used it personally, the reverse is true for the police."Most of the serious investigations we are doing now are not about police abuse of powers," said Hardwick. "It's about the police's failure to protect vulnerable people, like women who have reported threats from a violent partner who aren't being dealt with effectively and they end up getting murdered, or other vulnerable victims who have gone to the police and not been helped. These are the biggest cases we have now."The hardening of views across the political spectrum is now prompting calls for a public debate over the policing of democratic protest. "I think it's absolutely inevitable that the sort of stories that have come out are going to knock the police's reputation, and it's deeply regrettable given that they concern a small minority involved in the Territorial Support Group [the specialist unit at the heart of the G20 allegations] overwhelmingly, where there are real issues of discipline," said Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman.Now the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary is to review the forces' tactics, including "kettling" - corralling demonstrators and not letting them leave the site of protest. Kettling is to be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights after its use during the May Day protests of 2001, when police used it in central London. Lois Austin, 35, who was held for seven hours, unable to collect her baby daughter, lost her case in the British courts against the police for false imprisonment in January.Senior Conservatives are now divided as to whether the party should take on the police. Chris Grayling, the new shadow home secretary, defended "kettling" last week, while London's Mayor Boris Johnson let it be known he had no concerns about the way the operation was conducted, beyond the specific cases investigated by the IPCC - although he was, says a source, "horrified at the costs".On the Labour side, Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, last year dropped plans for more elected police bodies after furious opposition from police, and is seen as too weakened by the row over her expenses to pick a new fight. The Association of Chief Police Officers are already preparing for battle over budgets in the recession and sources at the Met say the problems there are exacerbated by a merry-go-round of top jobs over the past 16 months. One officer said last week that the job of Assistant Commissioner, Special Operations, once so coveted, is now seen as one of the most politically unstable in the force. "People have adapted that old joke," he said grimly. "What's the difference between a wine gum and an AC Special Ops? A wine gum lasts longer."The problems in the post began when Andy Hayman left in December 2007 after allegations - denied - about his expenses. He was criticised by the IPCC over his role in the bungled operation that led to the killing of De Menezes in 2005, and was accused of "misleading" the public and his boss, Sir Ian Blair. He was replaced by Peter Clarke, who retired just four months later, to be replaced by Bob Quick. Assistant Commissioner, Special Operations John Yates, the murder specialist who led the cash for honours inquiry, took over the job last week.But what the politicians have already done is give police a whole range of new powers over the past decade that are now causing such controversy. Terror legislation has given them far more intrusive powers to investigate people, such as the environmental campaigners who were arrested in Nottinghamshire and given prescriptive bail conditions, despite having not actually held their demonstration.Libertarians believe anti-terrorism legislation is undermining the social contract between police and the public. Laws meant to stop al-Qaida are being used in almost comical ways - it was reported last week how two Austrian tourists taking photographs were victims of police anti-terrorism powers. Two officers ordered the startled visitors to delete pictures they had taken of a London bus because it was forbidden under terrorism laws.Shami Chakrabarti, of civil rights group Liberty, said: "There has been an element of politicisation of the police, which was evident in the raid on Damian Green. But more significant than that, there has been a rise in broader policing powers and policies, a cranking up of anti-terror legislation that has led to individual officers losing the right to make their own individual decisions. There is little room for common sense. That has been the great irony."Simon Reed, vice chairman of the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said individuals were being blamed, but the real cause lay with a breakdown in trust between the public and the whole judicial system."The police are the public face of a criminal justice system that is failing and that's why we are being blamed. The public has no faith in the system - the courts do not always convict, criminals continue to commit crimes, officers are growing disillusioned. There have been 10 years of general decline, under-investment and a breakdown in a consensus between the public and the police that once helped to enforce the law."Undoubtedly the proliferation of images from mobile phones and cameras on the internet is helping to push the case of the police critics. Footage of clashes at the G20 on sites such as YouTube are being countered by police bloggers like InspectorGadget - who has posted videos showing the protesters goading officers, under the headline "Police outnumbered and attacked". Comments on his site spoke of being assaulted with stones and bottles. "The police have to respond to the fact that they are going to be watched," said Hardwick. "There is going to be more evidence of what they have done and they don't see that as a positive thing."Mike Russell filmed police searching his 23-year-old son Bertie's bedroom after his arrest, along with 29 others, in connection with an environmental protest on a train taking coal to the Drax power station in North Yorkshire last June. Officers can be seen taking away piles of news magazines because of "political articles in them"."We are a completely clean, middle-class family from west London and I was the sort of person who would ask a policeman for the time, but now I would steer clear," said Russell yesterday. "I no longer have any trust in the police and especially after seeing the vast violence by police against the G20 protesters I worry about the safety of anyone near them."http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/19/police-g20-tomlinson-assault