Tag Archives: policing

The Voice

Lib Dems demand criminal inquiry into Tomlinson death

By The Voice | Wed 8th April 2009 - 9:39 am

The BBC reports:

The Liberal Democrats are demanding a criminal inquiry after video footage of the G20 protest showed a police officer pushing over a man who later died.

Newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson, 47, who was walking home from work, suffered a heart attack afterwards outside the Bank of England in central London.

Lib Dem justice spokesman David Howarth said the footage showed a “sickening and unprovoked attack” by police.

The IPCC is investigating and said it would examine the footage.

Here’s Lib Dem shadow justice secretary David Howarth’s statement on the Guardian video showing a policeman attacking Mr Tomlinson shortly …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

A question for Daniel Finkelstein on the G20 protests

By Stephen Tall | Thu 2nd April 2009 - 2:30 pm

Daniel Finkelstein has another of his regular pops at Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems today. (Danny’s an ex-SDPer, and, like a reformed smoker, is obsessively evangelical in his disdain for its successor party).

Today, as he did yesterday, Danny seeks to demonise four senior Lib Dem politicians – Baroness Williams, Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne and David Howarth – for acting as legal observers monitoring the policing of yesterday’s climate camp protest in London, timed to coincide with the G20 summit.

Today, as he did yesterday, Danny fails to mention the legitimate concerns which were raised – …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Shirley, Simon, Chris and David

By Stephen Tall | Wed 1st April 2009 - 1:45 pm

The Times tells us that four senior Lib Dems will be on hand to inspect police treatment of protesters at today’s climate camp in London’s Square Mile:

Four Liberal Democrats – Baroness Williams of Crosby, Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne and David Howarth – will act as legal observers at the climate camp to prevent violence initiated by police, rather than protesters.

Mr Howarth, the MP for Cambridge, said that police and media were guilty of “talking up the violence”, adding: “The danger is that they are putting off peaceful protesters, and attracting the wrong sort.”

Over at the paper’s Comment Central …

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Stephen Tall

Huhne: police officers with criminal convictions should be sacked. (Question: should they?)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 11th March 2009 - 8:05 pm

Here’s how the party’s lead press release today, picked up by much of the media today, reports this latest crime statistic:

Over a thousand serving police officers in Great Britain have criminal convictions, according to new figures revealed by the Liberal Democrats. …

• There were 1,063 serving police officers in 41 police forces across Britain who had criminal convictions
• This includes five officers who were sacked by the force but reinstated by the Home Office
• There are 77 serving police officers with convictions for violent offences who have kept their jobs: 59 with convictions for assault; 14 for violence against the person;

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 16 Comments
Stephen Tall

‘Toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and possible bee stings’ – the injuries that Kingsnorth climate camp protestors were blamed for inflicting on police

By Stephen Tall | Tue 16th December 2008 - 8:25 pm

Kudos to Lib Dem MP David Howarth for his role in forcing an apology from a Labour home office minister who had blamed protestors who attended the Kingsnorth climate camp for hurting 70 police officers. The Guardian has the story today:

A minister apologised to parliament yesterday for telling MPs that 70 police officers were hurt during a climate change protest … The apology followed a freedom of information request from the Liberal Democrats, which showed that no officers in the £5.9m police operation at Kingsnorth power station in Kent during August had been injured by protesters. Instead, police records showed that their medical unit had dealt mostly with toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and “possible bee stings”.

And here’s the Hansard exchange:

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Opinion: Whose law is it anyway?

By Neale Upstone | Mon 18th August 2008 - 9:39 am

Anyone who followed the recent Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth could have a range of views of the policing of that event. It could be anything from: “The police successfully prevented an extreme element from injuring protestors, police and horses” to “a legitimate and necessary protest went ahead despite an extreme element within the police force, who were committed to suppress it”.

For me, my experience of the policing of the camp is something I’m having some difficulty accepting. As a councillor in Cambridge, I work closely with the police and know the intentions of officers are overwhelmingly …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 11 Comments
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