Official review says orders were not communicated properly, leading to indiscriminate use of stop and search on activists
Kent police’s blanket use of stop-and-search powers on thousands of environmental activists at the Kingsnorth demonstration was “disproportionate and counterproductive”, according to an official review into the force’s handling of protests released today.
A total of 8,218 searches were carried out on protesters at the week-long demonstration last August against the energy company E.ON’s proposed coal-fired power-station, after orders from senior commanders were misinterpreted “as an instruction to search everyone”.
Although “huge amounts of property were seized” during the climate camp protests, only 2,000 stop-and-search forms – fewer than 25% – were legible. The report said this raised questions about the competence of police officers and their understanding of the law.
Most protesters were stopped under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), which requires officers to have reasonable suspicion that an individual is carrying prohibited weapons or articles that could be used for criminal damage.
David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, echoed the report’s findings when he said: “This is yet another example of the disproportionate use of stop and search, and shows how, even on the report’s own narrow terms, this tactic is totally counterproductive.”
The scale of the stop-and-search operation came to light in two inquiries by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) into Kent police’s £5.3m operation, the largest of its kind in the UK last year. More than 1,400 officers were drafted in from 24 forces to assist with the operation, codenamed Oasis, on the Hoo peninsula.
The Kent force has come under sustained criticism for its management of the demonstration, after allegations of brutality by officers who had covered their badge numbers and concern that police used “psychological operations”, including playing loud music at night to deprive activists of sleep.
The force was also forced to apologise after an investigation by the Guardian established its officers had placed journalists covering the demonstration under surveillance.
The reports – an initial debrief by the NPIA and a broader review conducted on its behalf by South Yorkshire police – found the Kingsnorth operation was “in the main successful” because it had stopped protesters getting on to the site and ensured there was “no interruption to power supply”. However, many of the concerns put forward by demonstrators appear to be substantiated in its findings.
The reviews paint a picture of widespread breakdown in communication, with police officers from visiting forces given hardly any explanation about why they had been deployed by Kent. They found officers on the ground were under-trained, did not understand their powers, lacked knowledge of basic public order terminology and were given outdated intelligence.
The reports were most critical of the stop-and-search policy, which saw all protesters made to line up in airport-style checkpoints to be searched going to and from the camp. Commanders, the review reveals, initially told officers that “personal grounds must be justified and no blanket power approach is to be taken” when searching under section 1 of Pace. But they were then told “that the camp is illegal and the intention of the camp is to commit damage, hence the grounds for searching attendees to the camp is made”, which resulted in almost every activist being searched multiple times.
The reports said this resulted in a “vicious cycle”, “moving non-activists closer to resistance and violence on account of tactics they saw hard to accept as justified by the police. With this developing crowd dynamic of hostility, intelligence then presented a worsening picture, which provided more grounds to search camp attendees.”
A list of more than 2,000 possessions taken from protesters, released under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that, in a supposed attempt to prevent activists causing injury or taking a nearby river, officers took packets of balloons, tents, a clown’s outfit, camping equipment, cycle helmets and bike locks, bin bags, party poppers, leaflets and soap.
The NPIA debrief was particularly critical of the failure of officers to write legibly. “The fact that so many forms were submitted in such poor quality also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of supervision and the overall knowledge of policing powers, which was felt to be lacking.”
Kent police’s chief constable, Michael Fuller, welcomed the “numerous areas of good practice”, while accepting that there were some lessons to learn. “While many of the recommendations made to us have already been adopted in the intervening 12 months, there is still work to be done either within Kent or in conjunction with other forces or agencies.”
The review recommended the Kent force should have worked more closely with E.ON. However, Howarth said it was not the police’s job to take the side of companies during legitimate protest.
“It is quite wrong to suggest that the police should have worked more closely from the start with the energy company. The police are not a private security firm. Their job is to act in the public interest, and the public interest includes the right to protest.”
The report also said the government should consider introducing new legislation to allow a senior officer to authorise stop and search where “widespread acts of criminal damage was likely”. But Howarth dismissed the recommendation. “It is bizarre to suggest that the right response to excessive use of stop and search should be a change in the law to make stop and search more widely available.”
Arguments the left has to win
We must settle our differences on issues from nuclear weapons to healthcare if we are to exert pressure on the policy makers
This week James Purnell launched a Demos project, Open Left, which is asking what it means to be on the left today. To understand the difficulties that face the left you have to start way back. For almost 10 years a consensus has developed within the three main parties inspired by the Thatcher counter-revolution, which argued that government should keep out of industry and leave everything to the market.
It was that very policy that led to the present economic crisis and which has had a dramatic effect on the level of Labour support in two ways: a falling turnout for Labour and the emergence of the BNP.
The present government has many achievements of which we can be proud, not least on the environment, but the party is seen as offering management rather than representation. Policies worked out on the sofas in Whitehall will not, in my opinion, make much of a contribution to the rebuilding of confidence among the voters.
Nor indeed will sectarian strife on the left help.
More and more people worldwide now see that the basic conflict is between the majority who create the wealth and the handful who own it and want jobs and homes, good healthcare and education, decent pensions and peace.
From where I see it now, outside parliament, the reconstruction of a strong left has to begin by developing powerful campaigns centred on the issues that concern people, which can bring in support from across the whole political spectrum.
The Stop the War movement, which has been one of the most successful in my lifetime, enjoyed the backing of conservatives, liberals, greens, as well as those on the left, and will ultimately win a majority for a policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Now some generals are coming out against nuclear weapons at the moment when we are being told we may have to spend billions to upgrade them. This project is the most obvious candidate for a cut in public expenditure.
Housing is another example. We see a long housing waiting list and unemployed builders who cannot be financed because the money is going to the bankers, some of whom are getting huge bonuses, paid for by taxation.
Similarly there is great anxiety about the deliberate privatisation of the public services – which we have seen in academies and the private financing of hospital building – which leaves them outside any democratic control.
It is the same with civil liberties that have been eroded and state pensions which are still dropping behind the earnings with which they were once linked.
Then there is taxation – where the modest increase announced for wealthier people has been denounced by the City but it is nothing compared to the highest level when Churchill left office in 1945 – 95%, justified on the grounds that the money was needed to fight the war and that the rich should share the burdens that others had to bear. These arguments apply to the present economic crisis.
We have to win these arguments if we are to retain power next year.
And that means there has to be much more pressure from below on the policy makers in Downing Street. Out of such pressure will come a revitalised left renewing its commitment to serve those it has always sought to represent.
For the first time in my life the public is more progressive on all these issues than New Labour.
Democracy is the buckle that links the streets to the statute book and to renew the left, democracy must be strengthened in a world increasingly dominated by forces we do not control.
Letters to my Grandchildren, by Tony Benn, will be published in October by Hutchinson