The metropolitan police have expressed their regret over the arrest of anti-monarchy protesters, during the coronation day. A Journalist Graham Smith, who was among the arrested protestants has said, he received more personal apologies from some police officers.
The journalist disclosed, he did not accept the apologies, and would be taken legal actions, after no charges were brought against him. The metropolitan police have also acknowledged that, it has used a controversial law to detain the protesters.
According to Mr. Smith, the chief inspector and two other officers, came to his Reading home to issue their apologies. “They seemed rather embarrassed to be honest,” Smith said. “I said for the record I won’t accept the apology. We have a lot of questions to answer and we will be taking action,” he added.
Mr. Smith earlier on, has said he demands a “full enquiry” in the “disgraceful episode.” The metropolitan police have said that, investigations into the arrest of six protesters whose vehicle stopped near the procession route, shows that they’re planning to “lock on,” a protesting tactic which is now banned.
Recent changes in the law, prohibits demonstrators to use equipment to secure themselves to things like railings. The metropolitan police said, the group of six were detained after items were found in a vehicle, which officers “had reasonable grounds to believe could be use as lock on device.”
A man in the group was also arrested for possession of knife. The police said, it was “clear at the time” to the arresting officers that, “at least one of the group stopped, had been engaging with police” about doing a lawful demonstration prior to the coronation.
“We regret that those six people arrested were unable to join the wider group of protesters in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere on the procession route,” a statement continued. Now, all the six groups have been granted bail and no further actions were taken against them.
Graham Smith has disclosed that, he spent months discussing with the police about his group’s demonstration plans. Smith said, his group would be “speaking about taking legal actions.” He continued to say, he was held for 16 hours, after police officers stopped him and group members, suspecting them of carrying a “lock on” device. This happened on the morning of the coronation. Graham Smith also said, the police claimed to have gotten intelligence, and that was not true.
“If they did have intelligence, their intelligence officers are either lying or incompetent because there was never any discussion, thought, email, message, anything that suggested any intent to do anything disruptive,” he added.
Mr. Smith averred that, after months of talks with the Met, they “repeatedly said, right up until Friday, that they had no concerns about our protest plans, that they were well aware of what we were going to do and they would engage with us and not disrupt us.” He continued to say that, “So they’ve repeatedly lied about their intentions, and I believe they had every intention of arresting us prior to doing so.”
Conservative MP Opposed Amendment To The Public Order Act
David Davis, a former Cabinet Minister, was the only MP, who voted against the changes in the public order bill, which criminalized protesters using a Lock on device. He said, the legislation should be examined by the Home Affairs Select Committee, it guarantees that it is understood and implemented fairly.
“There’s too many elements of the law that are too crude and too broadly defined,” David said. “What the government said was that, it expects the police to come up with standards of behaviour. That’s very woolly. If we’re going to do that, we should do it properly, do it centrally, with the same level of democracy in the whole country,” the MP added.
David Davis went on to say, “No one wants a day ruined, but the right to put up placards is virtually absolute in British democracy,”
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