Police attacked by quad bike riders

POLICE have been attacked by quad bike riders in Maryhill as dispersal orders are being considered to crack down on Bonfire Night chaos in Glasgow. Police chief superintendent Mark Sutherland suggested the use of the powers, which allow officers to disperse groups of people causing trouble in certain streets.

Fire crews rushed to 54 incidents on November 5 in the city, the Safe Glasgow Partnership heard on Thursday as part of a Bonfire Night debrief.

Overall the chief superintendent pointed out Glasgow “fared well this year” with “excellent community engagement”.

But he warned: “We had fairly significant levels of disorder in the East End of Glasgow, in Drumchapel and Maryhill.

“Officers were attacked by individuals on quad bikes within Maryhill.”

Responding to a question about what could be improved, CS Sutherland said there might be interest in the use of dispersal orders and exclusion orders next year, which are available to the council.

He said dispersal orders were used in some areas of Scotland but not in Glasgow where there was a focus on community engagement and education to ensure neighbourhoods were safe.

He told the partnership meeting: “Where we have seen serious disorder over the years dispersal and exclusion zones remain a viable tactic that will be worthy of further discussion nearer the time.”

Scottish Fire & Rescue area commander David Murdoch said there was really good partnership working over the fireworks weekend.

He said there was one attack on firefighters. He pointed out crews attended seven incidents on November 4, 54 on November 5 and 25 on November 6, according to provisional figures yet to be verified.

Mr Murdoch said: “Overall we managed to have as safe as possible night. While there was some amount of disruption and civil disturbance from our point of view we worked well to keep our crews safe in the community as much as possible.”

He added: “Glasgow pulled together well to reduce where possible any disruption and people had a safe night.”

Staff from the council, Scottish Fire & Rescue and Police Scotland were based in the council’s hi- tech operations centre on November 4 and 5 to coordinate responses this year.

It was the first time that all the services involved in the bonfire night response were physically based together in the city operations centre.