Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of ...

Ev w64 Home Affairs Committee: Evidence
on the general principles of policing. The operational commander requires practical skills, in attempting to
prevent serious public disorder, in the execution of plans and the deployment of resources should disorder
occur and in the efforts to return an area to some kind of normality once order has been restored. It follows
that the policing of serious public disorder can also be described as an art, because effectiveness in this area
of policing is only likely to be achieved by the practical application of those skills. So the policing of serious
public disorder can be described as both a science, as it requires the acquisition of knowledge and an art as it
requires the skill to apply the knowledge in practice. Success will go ultimately to those commanders who are
best prepared to deal with the uncertainty and spontaneity of serious public disorder.
17. Experience is important. Direct experience, as its name applies, is actually being involved in the policing
of serious public disorder. There are two problems in relying on this. Firstly, despite the impression one gets,
the actual opportunities for individual police commanders are extremely rare. Few of the police commanders
who were involved in policing the 2011 outbreaks of disorder may face such situations again.
18. Indirect experience, on the other hand, is gained through training and exercising. In a public order
context, this includes examining how the police responded to past disorders. Practical training in public order
policing within the Police Service is likely to be of a generally high standard if the recommendations contained
in the two HMCIC reports are widely followed. The weakness is in the study of history of past disorders. Why
for instance, was the response of the Greater Manchester Police to rioting in Moss Side in 1981 so much more
successful than the response of the Metropolitan Police and Merseyside Police to the rioting in Brixton and
Toxteth respectively? Also to what extent do the police pro-actively practice “red-teaming” in public order
training?
19. In evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee when it was looking into the Policing
of the G20 Protests, the President of ACPO, suggested that outbreaks of disorder—of the kind seen in a number
of cities in 2011—were complex, fast-moving, highly complicated situations, sometimes spread over a wide
area, thus making it extremely difficult to handle. He went on to suggest that each outbreak of disorder was
“unique” and “each event does depend, in the final analysis, on the ability of ground commanders to respond
quickly to circumstances that change very quickly indeed.” He emphasised the importance of leadership when
he said that “one of the issues is around how well (the police) are led”.(25)
20. One of the main problems in policing public disorder is not that the Police Support Units lack enthusiasm
or fitness or even equipment but rather that there is an absence of strategic and tactical vision on the part of
some police commanders. As the violence becomes more intense, stereotyped methods become quite useless.
Police commanders must have a clear picture of what is happening during the events, and be master of them.
21. Unfortunately, the police still appear to use the stereotype method of confronting the rioters from one
location. The rioters therefore only have to be concerned about the police coming from one direction. Little
thought appears to be given to the police coming in from different directions at the same time, using either a
flanking formation or a pincer movement. Notwithstanding that police public order training does include such
tactics and Police Support Officers are well acquainted with such tactics.
22. In the context of the serious outbreaks of disorder in 2011, in an address to the Association of Chief
Police Officers in 1982, Sir Kenneth Newman, who was successively Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster
Constabulary, Commandant at the Police Staff College and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said:
“It is important that if the initiative has been lost to the rioters in the early stages it should be
recovered by the police as quickly as possible. Rioting spreads quickly. Any success gained by the
rioters or any apparent reluctance of police to put down rioting will serve to encourage rioters and
encourage others to join them.”(26)
Whether there should be any changes to the legislation regulating normal policing processes during times of
major disorder
23. Writing in the Criminal Law Review in 1984, A T H Smith pointed out that “a common British response
to large scale disturbances” during the 20th century was “to legislate” and he identified instances of disorder
that had brought about the Public Meeting Act 1908, the Public Order Act, 1936, the Representation of the
People Act, 1949, and the Race Relations Act, 1965.(27) Since then there has been additional legislation, most
notably the Public Order Act 1986, either giving the police greater powers or curbing what people can do. Yet
it seems that none have had an effect on the scale of disorder that now occurs. At the time his second report
on the G20 Protests was produced, HMCIC stated that “the answer to modernising and strengthening public
order policing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland” did not lie “in introducing more public order
legislation” (p14). This comment is endorsed.
Conclusion
24. The key to successful public order policing does not rely on more equipment or more legislation but the
careful selection and training of appropriate police commanders to deal effectively with outbreaks of public
disorder. It is a fallacy to believe that every senior or middle-ranking police officer will make a good public
order commander. In the same way as there are those who have a talent for computer or communication
systems, administration, organisational planning (as opposed to operational planning) or criminal investigation,