Officers describe ‘utter lawlessness’ while policing Notting Hill Carnival

The Metropolitan Police Federation – representing 30,000 Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) rank and file officers – has produced a hard hitting 24-page dossier documenting what its members really think about their safety at the Notting Hill Carnival.

Based on “astonishingly candid quotes and comments” from frontline officers who have worked at the annual event, survey results, newspaper cuttings from the past ten years and crime statistics from the Carnival, the dossier is being made publicly available with a view to improving safety for both the public and the police at future events.

Hard copies of the dossier were handed to Scotland Yard, Downing Street and City Hall on Monday (December 2) by representatives of the Federation, and it is being made available on the Federation website:

https://indd.adobe.com/view/8f2c320d-ea3f-43c7-9f30-eb367d870272?fbclid=IwY2xjawG6SJBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdAAu3M2mOmU1hcGSaUZ1_bFI2Qj1OI2Q_lPWR654uodHy3_CsoA3V-_iQ_aem_la_YHtNhITsIwqxtvu_cUA

Simon Hill, Deputy General Secretary of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: “For years we have made it known that officers don’t like the event. But we had no tangible evidence to support that.

“I felt it was important to get some concrete evidence, to hear the views of officers who work Notting Hill Carnival so we could truly understand what they think of the event and whether they enjoy policing it.

“We chose to focus our survey on the Notting Hill Carnival rather than another large-scale event because of the consistent volume of assaults reported by officers after the event every year.

“Officers also work approximately 30 to 40 hours over the two days, which can have a significant impact on their wellbeing.

“We are also extremely concerned about the public who attend the event being victims of crime that officers feel powerless to prevent due to the sheer number of attendees and crimes committed. No other event in London has this combination or level of issues for officers.”

Other comments received from officers in the Federation survey include:

• “Punched, kicked, hit with objects including bottles. Spat at and sexually assaulted.”
• “It is a dangerous environment with no concern for officer safety.”
• “As an ethnic minority, I often feel anxious about policing carnival.”
• “I would rather crawl naked through broken glass.”
• “I dread this event every year, it gets more violent each time. How many more officers have to get injured or innocent members of the public killed before anything is done?”

Mr Hill added: “I’m actually quite shocked by some of the responses. I knew that the event wasn’t popular, for a whole variety of reasons. But the candour from the officers and some of their descriptions of how they feel, how they felt at carnival and their experiences of being assaulted, quite frankly were shocking.

“One thing that jumped out was that the number of officers who had been assaulted at the event was at 29 per cent of respondents, while the number of officers who said they felt unsafe was up at 89 per cent. I think this disparity is down to the size of the crowd you’re policing. I think it’s the close proximity of everybody in such a confined area.”

At the most recent Carnival at the end of August, there were two murders, eight stabbings and 349 arrests: 72 for possession of an offensive weapon, one for possession of a firearm, 13 for sexual offences, and 53 for assaults on emergency workers.

Sixty-one police officers were assaulted over the weekend event.

A series of open questions from the Federation for the MPS and partner agencies on behalf of London officers – holding them to account on safety ahead of the 2025 event over the August Bank Holiday weekend – are included at the conclusion of the dossier.

Mr Hill said: “We understand the cultural significance of the event. We just want the event to be safe.

“What that safety looks like is operational – with the Met working with its partners, with the local authority, with Notting Hill Carnival Limited and with the Mayor’s office, to make it safe.

“That could be restricting the numbers of people that come to the area. It could be looking at alternative sites or looking at making it some form of a ticketed event.

“But it could equally be looking at things such as the quality of the stewards, the quality of the communications, the quality of licensing decisions. If there’s lots of evidence in relation to alcohol consumption and violence, why is the sale of alcohol allowed?

“The event seems to run, in terms of success, by the number of murders that are had. That, to me, is astonishing. I don’t see how you can judge the success of an event by whether you’ve had a murder or not. With the crowd’s density, I don’t think it would take too much to have a significant crushing event.

“That’s why I think the event needs to be made safer, because the public are at risk with this event, with the potential for a serious and potentially fatal crushing incident. Our whole emphasis on Carnival is to make it safe. Now we need the Metropolitan Police and its partner agencies to step up and make it so.”