Eco protest is stopping us policing, warns Met chief
EXTINCTION Rebellion’s climate protest is preventing officers from spending enough time with crime victims, police warned yesterday.
As Boris Johnson’s father joined the demonstrations, Scotland Yard admitted it takes hours and at least four officers to arrest eco-activists who are chained to each other, glued to buildings or barricaded inside tubes filled with concrete, chicken wire and nails.
The Met has now taken the extraordinary step of drafting in 500 officers from 43 other police forces in England and Wales to help cope with the protests.
It comes as demonstrators continued to bring disruption to London yesterday after staging a mass breastfeeding stunt and a group yoga session outside Downing Street, and parading a giant pink octopus along Whitehall.
But the protesters gained the backing of Stanley Johnson, 79, who rubbished the Prime Minister’s dismissal of the group as ‘unco- operative crusties’. In an embarrassing intervention for Mr Johnson, his father praised Extinction Rebellion for doing ‘exactly the right things’ as activists blocked off streets for the third day.
Police have made 800 arrests – including a 91-year-old – and confiscated eight ten- ton lorries worth of equipment, including generators, power sources, toilets, tents and sleeping equipment.
But Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor yesterday admitted the 24hour police operation was having a ‘significant impact’ on tackling other crime in the capital. He said: ‘We haven’t stopped policing, we would never stop policing, but it does mean some of the activity we would want to do beyond our normal response, we simply can’t do.
‘We can’t spend the amount of time with victims we would like to. We have to move on because we have to make sure we’re dealing with all of the incidents we come across.
‘It is making policing more difficult and it’s not at the level we would want it to be... and that is a really significant impact. We’re drawing officers from across the capital to work in central London when they should be working in their communities.’
Mr Taylor also hit back at criticism from ministers and peers who have said that officers should be taking a tougher line against the activists.
He said: ‘To cut protesters out of tubes that are filled with concrete and chicken wire and nails will take hours. We are being very proactive, we are being very robust but it’s not a speedy process.’ Yesterday Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick warned activists they would be arrested and prosecuted if they did not move to Trafalgar Square.
Scotland Yard has said protesters can set up an authorised camp in the pedestrianised area of the square – branded ‘Burning Earth’ – which has become the centre of the planned two-week protest.
But despite promises to adopt a heavy-handed clampdown, police struggled to disperse the climate activists from landmark sites in Westminster yesterday.
Specialist squads tried to clear an encampment and road blockade outside Westminster Abbey as hundreds of activists arrived to reinforce the ‘stronghold’, while around 50 officers targeted tents that had been placed on the roads surrounding Nelson’s Column.
And 91-year- old activist John Lynes, who was also arrested last month during a demo in Dover, said he was not feeling ‘too bad’ as he was led from Downing Street by police yesterday. Extinction Rebellion has vowed to shut down City Airport today.