Britain’s most senior police officer has defended the arrest of six anti-monarchy protesters and hit out at “ill-informed commentary” amid fierce criticism of the action taken.
Writing for the Evening Standard, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley said it was “unfortunate” that the demonstrators were unable to join fellow activists on Saturday following their detention.
The six were the first arrests to be made under the sweeping Public Order Act, under suspicion of going equipped to “lock-on” – a measure protesters use to make it harder for police to move them.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended the new powers, which came into force last week, saying it was right for officers to have the power to tackle “serious disruption”.
Sir Mark wrote in the Standard: “While it is unfortunate that the six people affected by this were unable to join the hundreds of peaceful protesters, I support the officers’ actions in this unique fast-moving operational context.”
The six campaigners from Republic were arrested early on Saturday morning and detained for 16 hours. They were released without charge after police conceded it could not be proved whether the protesters intended to lock-on.
Republic’s chief executive Graham Smith, who was among those arrested, is considering legal action against the Met after officers personally apologised to him over what he called a “disgraceful episode”.
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He said three “rather embarrassed” officers apologised to him at his home in Reading, Berkshire, before handing back the straps for the placards they arrested him over.
“I said for the record I won’t accept the apology. We have a lot of questions to answer and we will be taking action,” he told the PA news agency.
Mr Sunak told broadcasters during a visit to Southampton: “Of course people have the right to protest freely but peacefully, but it is also right that people have the ability to go about their day-to-day lives without facing serious disruption.
“What the Government has done is give the police the powers that they need to tackle instances of serious disruption to people’s lives.
“I think that is the right thing to do and the police will make decisions on when they use those powers.”
