‘Significant’ threat to lives prompts Birmingham evacuation

BIRMINGHAM’S police chief defended his decision to evacuate 20,000 people from the city centre on Saturday night, insisting there had been a “real and significant” threat to lives.

At a press conference at West Midlands Police headquarters, the force’s chief constable Paul Scott-Lee admitted the packages were neither bombs nor hoax explosive devices, but stressed information received by officers had been significant enough to warrant the evacuation.

In the wake of Thursday’s attacks on London, he said, the emergency services had to respond after police received calls from members of the public concerned about discarded items.

He said: “Last night, we took the unusual step of evacuating parts of Birmingham city centre and asked members of the public to go home.

“Bearing in mind the current world climate, the information we received posed a real threat to the lives of people in the city centre.”

Mr Scott-Lee praised the thousands of revellers who left the Broad Street area in a “calm and orderly manner”.

When asked if the evacuation was an over-reaction by police after the events in the capital on Thursday, he said: “There was a significant threat. Alert members of the public saw things that gave them concern and they responded to it.” No attempts were made to make the packages look like bombs, he said.

Yesterday morning shoppers and shop workers returned to the city centre’s streets to see a heightened police presence.

The economic cost of Saturday night’s evacuation is hard to calculate but people in Birmingham backed the police move.

Chef Richard Cooper, 23, said: “I don’t think it was over the top. If a bomb had gone off, the consequences would have been far worse if they had not done anything about it.”

Shop worker Charlotte Neugebauer, 22, said: “I work at the Bullring and I didn’t know whether we were going in to work today. I have to do bomb checks every morning.”