Slow to respond but there were no crimes being committed!? Trying to follow the logic here.
The police had kicked them out of the town before noon. There was maybe 50 – 100 guys there, its not something the local police can take on alone. Those guys would 100% have started on the police had they tried to move them on while outnumbered. Only way to really deal with these idiots is to show them they are outnumbered and will get squashed if they kick off. It takes several hours to organise the resources for that.
Hence by 11:30 they were marched through the town to the railway station like a bunch of naughty primary school kids and sent home with no violence.
I really don’t see how the police could have dealt with it any better, they were gone four and a half hours after showing up.
Another Labour official with limited intelligence or understanding of how policing works and stretched the Police are. So then, these ‘protestors’ mobilised on a saturday early morning. Kent police night shifts would of handed over to the oncoming day shift on a Saturday…which pending on what they walked into and being after a friday night I suspect prisoners to have to be dealt with before their pace clock runs out, a load of outstanding immediate calls that nights couldnt resource and need attending, or constant supervisions, immediate arrest taskings to do…..all with a handful of local officers. The police would of had to resource extra officers from other areas of kent who also would of walked into similar on a Saturday morning. Dover Port Police have limited resources as well. Oh and for a potential public order situation to mobilise the standby for that would take time and to deploy. The councillor is quite frankly silly and niave to suggest they could have got there quicker. I suggest they go and spend some time with Kent Police or any county force early on a Saturday morning to see just how bad the situation is.
How many cops do the council think are on duty at any one time?
Do they think the likely 10 – 15 cops on duty in Dover are all just waiting for stuff like this? Or are they dealing with arrests, incoming incidents, and ongoing investigations?
Do they think those same 10 – 15 would have been able to move the number of protestors, who by the way they’re dressed and experience of right wing demonstrations would be polite and friendly?
Does there not need to be time for senior, specialist officers to make strategic decisions about right to protest vs criminal offences?
There needs to be time for a suitable number of officers to gather, kit up (cops don’t regularly wear riot gear), and then attended suitably briefed to deal with it.
Maybe the councillor could have attended themself and resolved it?
Unlike the continent, we do not have standing armies of public order police like the gendarmerie in France. Public order cops are just the local officers with an extra few days training. It takes hours to mobilise to a spontaneous issue of this size and those officers have to be taken off duties elsewhere so no one is available to answer emergency calls. To mobilise the required numbers to escort them to the train station and get rid of them without using violence in four hours on an early Saturday morning with no notice is actually a real achievement.
There used to be a public order reserve in most forces, but like many capabilities it was cut as part of the budget cuts in 2010 by Theresa May.
There were probably about 10 response cops parading on at the start of the day, and about half of them would have been immediately abstracted anyway. There aren’t cops “on standby”.
Police slow to respond or Police secretly agree with them.
Who’d have thought it would take the Police a few hours to gather sufficient resources to fuck off hundreds of people.
Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
The police never did a thing as far as I can tell from what news articles I read. The balaclava thugs went home for lunch undisturbed by the police and that was it.
The police should’ve gone out with riot gear and rounded them all up!
This extreme far-right shouldn’t be allowed to protest, they’re a danger on our streets.
Since “Interfering with key national infrastructure” Is an offence. I trust they were all duly Identified and at least issued formal Police cautions.
This offence criminalises behaviour which prevents ‘to any extent’ or ‘significantly’ delays the operation of key infrastructure (including roads, railways, airports, harbours, oil & gas or electricity generation infrastructure or newspaper printing) in England and Wales. There is a list of key national infrastructure specified in the Act, which can be added to by the Secretary of State.
You will be committing this offence if you:
take action that interferes with the use or operation of key national infrastructure; and
intend or are reckless as to whether your actions will interfere with the use or operation of key national infrastructure.
If convicted in a magistrates’ court, you are punishable with imprisonment for up to the general limit in a magistrates’ court (six months), a fine, or both. If convicted in a crown court, you are punishable with up to 12 months’ imprisonment, a fine, or both.
seems to be organised thuggery with an easily identifiable ringleader.
Why does dover council suddenly care about hundreds of unidentified men wandering around when it never gave a shit before ?
13 comments
Slow to respond but there were no crimes being committed!? Trying to follow the logic here.
The police had kicked them out of the town before noon. There was maybe 50 – 100 guys there, its not something the local police can take on alone. Those guys would 100% have started on the police had they tried to move them on while outnumbered. Only way to really deal with these idiots is to show them they are outnumbered and will get squashed if they kick off. It takes several hours to organise the resources for that.
Hence by 11:30 they were marched through the town to the railway station like a bunch of naughty primary school kids and sent home with no violence.
I really don’t see how the police could have dealt with it any better, they were gone four and a half hours after showing up.
Another Labour official with limited intelligence or understanding of how policing works and stretched the Police are. So then, these ‘protestors’ mobilised on a saturday early morning. Kent police night shifts would of handed over to the oncoming day shift on a Saturday…which pending on what they walked into and being after a friday night I suspect prisoners to have to be dealt with before their pace clock runs out, a load of outstanding immediate calls that nights couldnt resource and need attending, or constant supervisions, immediate arrest taskings to do…..all with a handful of local officers. The police would of had to resource extra officers from other areas of kent who also would of walked into similar on a Saturday morning. Dover Port Police have limited resources as well. Oh and for a potential public order situation to mobilise the standby for that would take time and to deploy. The councillor is quite frankly silly and niave to suggest they could have got there quicker. I suggest they go and spend some time with Kent Police or any county force early on a Saturday morning to see just how bad the situation is.
How many cops do the council think are on duty at any one time?
Do they think the likely 10 – 15 cops on duty in Dover are all just waiting for stuff like this? Or are they dealing with arrests, incoming incidents, and ongoing investigations?
Do they think those same 10 – 15 would have been able to move the number of protestors, who by the way they’re dressed and experience of right wing demonstrations would be polite and friendly?
Does there not need to be time for senior, specialist officers to make strategic decisions about right to protest vs criminal offences?
There needs to be time for a suitable number of officers to gather, kit up (cops don’t regularly wear riot gear), and then attended suitably briefed to deal with it.
Maybe the councillor could have attended themself and resolved it?
Unlike the continent, we do not have standing armies of public order police like the gendarmerie in France. Public order cops are just the local officers with an extra few days training. It takes hours to mobilise to a spontaneous issue of this size and those officers have to be taken off duties elsewhere so no one is available to answer emergency calls. To mobilise the required numbers to escort them to the train station and get rid of them without using violence in four hours on an early Saturday morning with no notice is actually a real achievement.
There used to be a public order reserve in most forces, but like many capabilities it was cut as part of the budget cuts in 2010 by Theresa May.
There were probably about 10 response cops parading on at the start of the day, and about half of them would have been immediately abstracted anyway. There aren’t cops “on standby”.
Police slow to respond or Police secretly agree with them.
Who’d have thought it would take the Police a few hours to gather sufficient resources to fuck off hundreds of people.
Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
The police never did a thing as far as I can tell from what news articles I read. The balaclava thugs went home for lunch undisturbed by the police and that was it.
The police should’ve gone out with riot gear and rounded them all up!
This extreme far-right shouldn’t be allowed to protest, they’re a danger on our streets.
Since “Interfering with key national infrastructure” Is an offence. I trust they were all duly Identified and at least issued formal Police cautions.
This offence criminalises behaviour which prevents ‘to any extent’ or ‘significantly’ delays the operation of key infrastructure (including roads, railways, airports, harbours, oil & gas or electricity generation infrastructure or newspaper printing) in England and Wales. There is a list of key national infrastructure specified in the Act, which can be added to by the Secretary of State.
You will be committing this offence if you:
take action that interferes with the use or operation of key national infrastructure; and
intend or are reckless as to whether your actions will interfere with the use or operation of key national infrastructure.
If convicted in a magistrates’ court, you are punishable with imprisonment for up to the general limit in a magistrates’ court (six months), a fine, or both. If convicted in a crown court, you are punishable with up to 12 months’ imprisonment, a fine, or both.
seems to be organised thuggery with an easily identifiable ringleader.
Why does dover council suddenly care about hundreds of unidentified men wandering around when it never gave a shit before ?