Why did it take officers 12 hours to clear scene?
POLICE came under fire for taking 12 hours to clear the XR mob in a ‘softlysoftly’ approach.
The Hertfordshire force was condemned as ‘pathetic’ after sending an initial six officers to tackle almost 100 activists at Broxbourne on Friday night.
More officers quickly followed but Assistant Chief Constable Owen Weatherill then made an extraordinary declaration that his force was ‘committed to facilitating peaceful protest’.
Reporters said police appeared to allowing the protesters plenty of time to glue and lock themselves into position.
It took nearly three hours before a specialist team of officers arrived at around 1am. But instead of removing the rebels, they gathered in a hotel car park.
After an hour and a half of discussing tactics, the police gave protesters a 30-minute ultimatum to leave or be removed.
It was then a further 45 minutes, at 3.15am, before the specialist squad finally moved in. Not until after 10am on Saturday was the final protester removed.
Yesterday former Labour minister Ian Austin, now a peer, said the police response was ‘pathetic’. He added: ‘People can protest all they like but the police have a duty to keep roads open, allow people to go to work and newspapers to be published.’
Former Labour home secretary Lord Blunkett said that officers should have used ‘ whatever powers were available’.
He said: ‘They’re mixing up historic debate about [union] picketing with protests relating to political issues, which can be dealt with through normal democratic process. Peaceful protest using distancing is acceptable, anarchy is not.’
Police said there had been no warning about the XR protest although last December The Mail on Sunday revealed the group was specifically targeting the Hertfordshire printworks.
Hertfordshire Chief Constable Charlie Hall said: ‘Protesters had created sophisticated and complex mechanisms and structures to ensure their removal was as challenging as possible.’
The disruption at the plant in Knowsley, Merseyside, started at 10pm, with XR wheeling in a yellow painted boat to blockade the entrance with two vans.
Some protesters were handcuffed together under the boat and some used D-locks to attach their necks to scaffolding holding the boat up high.
After extensive negotiations, 22 of the protesters freed themselves and were arrested. A specialist team then cut free the last eight.