Police Information

POLICE 'BROKE THE LAW'

Mon, May 21, 2001

Source:

POLICE 'BROKE THE LAW' IN MAY DAY STAND-OFF

 

The Metropolitan Police have expressed their delight at the way in which the May Day demonstrations were handled and were unrepentant refusing demands by civil rights groups to apologise to bystanders penned in by riot officers at the May Day anti-capitalist demonstrations.

Over 2,000 people were held for up to seven hours before being released one-by-one after police searched them and took their photographs. Lawyers acting for a group of 300 of the people trapped in Oxford Circus as the protests turned violent will this week hold a joint meeting to discuss taking legal action against the police for wrongful imprisonment although many of those have said that an apology is all their after.

A Scotland Yard spokesperson said last night that the police action was necessary because of the violence of a minority of protesters: 'There is no intention to apologise to those who were detained. Because of the minority, we had to detain the majority. Are they going to apologise to us for throwing bottles?'

The Metropolitan Police last night confirmed that it had taken legal advice in advance of the operation to detain protesters.

However it has been revealed that the police had serious concerns that public order legislation was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. City of London police commissioner Perry Nove has stated that he was concerned that the law that makes it an offence to organise a parade without informing the police was incompatible with the right to freedom of assembly. Further questions have been raised about the way police used blanket stop-and-search powers against anyone caught in Oxford Circus on May Day.