News & events
The police need to win back public trust
by Paul Donovan, Irish Post, 25/4/2009
Public confidence in the police has hit a new low with the death of newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson after being struck by riot officers at the G20 protests. Paul Donovan argues that the police tactics on controlling dissent have to change and the right to peaceful protest restored
The death of news vendor Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protest has brought the relationship between police and public to an all time low. The tragic death of Mr Tomlinson is now subject of an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). There were immediate parallels drawn between the death of Mr Tomlinson and that of the Brazilian
Jean Charles De Menezes, who was shot dead on a tube train by the police in 2005.
The whole manner in which the police set out to 'control' the G20 demonstration seemed predicated on violence. The police PR machine was briefing in advance of the trouble expected. It was estimated that there were around 4,000 demonstrators accompanied by around the same number of police.
It was made clear in advance that the practice known as kettling, whereby a large number of people are corralled in a restricted area and not allowed out for hours, would be deployed. This no doubt was intended to have a deterrent effect. The police message was clear, stay away unless you want trouble.
This form of controlling dissent by the use of physical force has evolved over the past 30 years. The early 1980s saw the police deployed with force to combat inner city riots in Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth. These tactics were then used for the miners strike in 1984. The strike saw the police using horses and dogs offensively and laying into miners. The idea of the impunity for the police took root around this time with 10,000 miners arrested and prosecuted. Yet despite the evidence of police violence, not one officer was prosecuted or made the subject of disciplinary action.
Across in the North of Ireland, the police had even greater leeway with the whole paraphernalia of the criminal justice system being rearranged in their favour. So the emergency powers legislation brought in judge only courts while the Prevention of Terrorism Act produced detention for seven days without charge. On the streets brutal policing saw the regular use of plastic bullets. Few police were ever prosecuted.
The question of impunity for the police was again in evidence over the miscarriages of justice of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The wrongful imprisonment of the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and Judy Ward brought a crisis in the criminal justice system. Juries simply were not believing the word of police officers anymore. Yet the legal establishment response was to put a few middle to low ranking officers on trial, most of whom were cleared. At another level the Royal Commission on the Criminal Justice system was set up under Lord Runciman. This bought time, reporting a couple of years later. Remarkably, the findings resulted in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 giving even more powers to the police and removing rights like that of the defendent to remain silence.
Then came another crisis of confidence in the police with the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The resulting comprehensive report of Lord Macpherson identified institutional racism in the police and made recommendations to remedy the situation. Some action was taken but just as there were the whispering campaigns with the miscarriages of justice about ³there being no smoke without fire² and ³getting off on technicalities² so the police have picked away at the Macpherson findings. This most recently saw former Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair declaring that there had not been institutional racism.
Since 9/11 under the aegis of the threat of terrorism, the police have taken ever more power to themselves. They now have 28-day pre-charge detention having been denied first 90 then 42 days. There is the power to intern people indefinitely under the immigration courts. The power under anti-terror laws, as Irish Post reporter Fiona Audley recently experienced, to stop and search people without so much as a reasonable suspicion.
While the police can take pictures of anyone they like, there are restrictions under anti-terror laws on the public taking pictures of them. The body empowered to bring the police to account, the IPCC, is about as ineffectual as its predecessor the Police Complaints Commission. The fault at the root of both organisations lies in putting a nominal civilian at the head of an investigation conducted by the police of the police.
Another problem with the IPCC is that it seems to believe it is there to serve the police not the public. This was evidenced in a report to the Public Accounts Committee where the organisation indicated that the Superintendents Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Police Federation were all satisfied with its performance. No mention was made of the public whose complaints it is supposed to investigate. There have already been criticisms over the way in which the IPCC has reacted to the death of Ian Tomlinson. First, it accepted the police position that he had no contact with the forces overseeing the demonstration. Had this view held then the police would have investigated the death without the IPCC getting involved.
Then there was Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC, declaring that there was no CCTV footage of the incident. The IPCC are now examining that footage. The police need to be made accountable and start once again to serve rather than control the community. Recent actions against the G20 demonstrators and climate protesters show that they are often out to smash legitimate protest. Practices like kettling must be outlawed. The rights to peaceful protest and association need to be reasserted. The contract of policing by consent between police and public is very much under threat. If it is to be saved there certainly needs to be substantial change.
The police need to realise that they are subject to the law like everyone else. When they do wrong they must be prosecuted. There also need to be genuinely independent structures established that will hold the police visibly to account.