Mayor backs MPS over London riots as full costs emerge

The acting commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the Mayor of London both backed the force’s handling of the riots last month although admitting that more officers would have been desired on the streets and that the riots had taken the MPS by surprise.

Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s (HASC) inquiry into policing large-scale disorder on Tuesday, Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin said in hindsight, he would have wished to have more officers on the capital’s streets on August 8 to help with the force’s response to serious disorder which broke out in 22 boroughs.

In preparing for Monday evening, approximately 6,000 officers from the MPS and other forces were deployed across London, including 1,900 public order officers – approximately 558 of whom were provided by Mutual Aid. However, despite the increased resources, the force was stretched by the scale of simultaneous incidents across London, and plans were put in place overnight to significantly increase resources. This included contacting PNICC (Police National Information and Coordination Centre) and forces directly in preparation for the following day.

Mr Godwin said he took “pride” in the way his officers refrained from using tougher tactics such as water canons or rubber bullets and that “the fact that we filled up prison places instead of hospital beds” demonstrated the British way of policing. Police numbers in the streets was described as the “inhibitor” and commanders’ decisions to increase the number of officers deployed over the course of the disorder had been taken before senior MPS officers met with ministers in an emergency recall of Parliament.

Mr Godwin said: “With hindsight I wish I had more officers on the streets on that Monday night to respond to what was 22 boroughs of serious disorder. We were not expecting that level and spread, that copycatting of sheer criminality.

“The number of sites of disorder was not something we had witnessed before and that took us by surprise. The most important thing is that we look at what occurred, learn from it and that next time, and if there is a next time and hopefully it will be very rare, that we will be able to deal with it in a different way.”

He added: “We need to do something about the fear of crime in inner cities. We’ve got to empower citizens in the inner cities to be able to stand up against the criminals.”

Mayor Boris Johnson defended the force’s actions and said the disorder had been contained despite Prime Minister David Cameron telling MPs in the emergency sitting last month that the police had used the wrong tactics.

He said: “I think with 20/20 hindsight people may feel that it would have been wiser to upscale the police presence. But if you look overall at what the police did on [the first] night and on successive nights and what they are doing now… the riots were contained and there were remarkably few casualties.”

However, Mr Godwin said that the widespread rioting and subsequent high number of offenders who have since been brought to justice has been a “wake-up” call for the criminal justice system. He said that prisons had failed to deal with serious offenders and called for career criminals to be given more options and better alternatives.

The HASC was also told that 83 per cent of rioters have had some involvement with the police and 75 per cent had a criminal record.

“We have in London been seeking to speed up justice, make it more relevant, make it more relevant to communities, and that’s something that we need to do. The amount of people who have previous convictions does pose questions for us,” Mr Godwin told MPs.

In a letter to the HASC, the MPS also revealed that policing the disorder across the capital cost £74 million which included £23 million on police overtime, £2 million on supports costs and £40 million on opportunity costs (the benefit loss to the MPS of an officer being deployed away from their normal duties to these duties).