G20 police chief not satisfied with protest training

A British police chief said today he was not satisfied that officers had sufficient training to deal with events such as the recent G20 protest in London.

Metropolitan Police Commander Bob Broadhurst, the man responsible for drawing up policing plans for the event, told the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee that officers received only two days’ training a year in this area.

He defended the performance of his officers during the clashes in the City of London last month but said the workforce of “relatively young people that we draw from” was not experienced in crowd control.

Asked if he was satisfied officers received sufficient training, he said: “No I’m not.”

He said there had been no large-scale public disorder for a number of years and many officers were brought in for the G20 operation from Borough forces.

“The vast majority of those have never faced a situation as violent as that,” he said.

“I do have a concern that some of our officers have not faced that.

“I would like to train them more but we don’t have the time.”

He said he was proud of the “restraint” he witnessed from officers “who were probably quite scared”.

He also said any inappropriate behaviour would have been because of fear.

Until a few years ago officers were trained in crowd control two times a year. The committee heard the force is now stretched, however.

Mr Broadhurst described the performance of his officers as “superb” and said they showed restraint in the face of provocation.

He added: “Clearly there are areas of concern which are rightly being investigated.”

Mr Broadhurst said there were lessons to be learned from the way the protest was handled and that he wanted to train officers in the “softer” areas of policing.

He said: “Clearly our communications to the crowd were not good enough.”

He said what might be required is a public address system or large screen to convey information.

He said officers on the frontline also needed to be better at identifying those in the crowd who might cause trouble and allowing those out who were wholly innocent.