Public Order Policing

David T C Davies Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I look forward to appearing before the Home Affairs Committee tomorrow. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will have a number of very pertinent questions. There has already been a review of public order policing, but Sir Denis O’Connor is looking again at that review, in the light of what has taken place.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does the Home Secretary acknowledge that one problem is that the police know that any attempt to deal with violent protest will be met by a barrage of complaints to the IPCC, which some in high places will support? Does she accept that it is time that we started to think a little more about the human rights of police officers to do their jobs free of assault and injury?

[Mrs May]

In any such instances, the police have a balance to attain when policing protests. It is right that they should be accountable for their actions, and that the IPPC looks into questions and complaints about police actions, as with the individual who was seriously injured. However, it is also right for us to make it absolutely clear that the violence was the fault of those who came along determined to perpetrate it.