Click to play
Sir Hugh Orde says senior officers made the decision to cancel all police leave.
Association of Chief Police Officers president Sir Hugh Orde
said these tactics were employed because more police officers were made
available.
Home Secretary Theresa May had said she ordered every UK police chief to cancel all staff leave to deal with the riots.
But Sir Hugh said she had "no power whatsoever" to make such an order.
Meanwhile, 68-year-old Richard Mannington Bowes, who was
critically injured in an attack as he tried to stamp out a fire during
riots in Ealing, has died.
Police have launched a murder inquiry and issued a CCTV image of a suspect.
'Political interference'
Police say four other deaths - a man found shot in a car in
Croydon and three men hit by a car in Birmingham - may be linked to the
recent disorder.
The Met Police has made 1051 arrests since the rioting began on Saturday, and 591 people have been charged.
West Midlands Police have arrested 445 people and 178 have so far been arrested in Manchester and Salford.
"The police faced an
unprecedented situation, unique circumstances," said Sir Hugh, who
represents chief police officers in England and Wales.
"The fact that politicians chose to come back [from holiday]
is an irrelevance in terms of the tactics that were by then developing,"
he told BBC Two's Newsnight.
"The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function
of political interference; they were a function of the numbers being
available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics."
Police Federation vice chairman Simon Reed said the
suggestion that police changed their approach after the government
stepped in was "a cheap shot".
"To say it publicly is denigrating not just chief officers,
it's denigrating the brave officers that were working those nights. They
are basically saying they were not brave enough to do their jobs. So I
know today that police officers up and down the country will be very
slighted by what this government has now said."
When asked if budget cuts would reduce public safety, Sir
Orde said it would "inevitably" lead to fewer police officers, which
would therefore make the task more difficult.
"We need to have some very honest conversations with
government about what we stop doing if we are to maintain frontline
service delivery at current levels," he said.
"It's the 20% cuts in the present spending period that will
lead to less police officers, we should be very clear about that."
Police 'surge'
Several Labour MPs have called for the government to reverse planned police cuts.
But during an emergency parliamentary debate on the riots on
Thursday, Mr Cameron insisted the cuts were "totally achievable" without
any reduction in the visible policing presence and said that a "surge"
of officers - as seen in recent days - would still be possible in
future.
Mr Cameron also told MPs that it had become clear there had been problems in the initial police response to the disorder.
"There were simply far too few police deployed on to our
streets and the tactics they were using weren't working," said the prime
minister.
Sir Hugh Orde has dismissed Theresa May's claims that she ordered police leave to be cancelled
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh has also said the
Met did not have enough officers on duty on Monday, and those that were
had been stretched as riots, fires and looting broke out across the
capital.
On Monday night about 6,000 police officers were on duty, including officers from neighbouring forces.
That number has since been increased to 16,000, with
reinforcements from other forces around the country, and they will
remain in place over the weekend.
Sir Hugh has been seen as a leading contender to become the next Metropolitan police commissioner.
BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said his comments
would raise doubts as to whether he could work alongside the home
secretary in that role, should he apply for it.
The riots first flared on Saturday after a peaceful protest in Tottenham over the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, by police.
Mr Duggan's death is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
No comments:
Post a Comment