Wednesday 2 September 2009

Notting Hill Carnival policing (continued)

Anyone who was at Carnival this year would have seen another great event, with around a million people celebrating together.

The police were out in force, as anticipated, and spent much of the day walking in single file through the crowds, dividing groups of people street partying, setting up a series of what looked suspiciously like checkpoints, and stopping young black men as they came out of Tube stations.

According to the "Notting Hill Carnival News" section of the Metropolitan Police website there were eventually 139 arrests on Bank Holiday Monday. The report also talks of mass arrests at Victoria station (quoted below).

More details as we get them. UCAPV has also put in a Freedom of Information request to the Met Police querying the number of people searched, their ethnic background, how many of these were arrested and how many charged. This should take a few weeks but the results will be posted here when we have them.

The following is from the Met Police website, "Notting Hill Carnival News":
19:20hrs - 40 arrests at Victoria station

A total of 40 people have now been arrested at Victoria mainline station. They were arrested in order to prevent a breach of the peace at the Notting Hill Carnival.

At 1510hrs today, police contained an initial group of 25 people who we believe had travelled by train from south London. They were stopped based on intelligence to suggest that the group was going to the Carnival to commit disorder.

Of that 25 people, two were arrested straight away after police recovered body armour and a knife. The remaining 23 were arrested on a case-by-case basis.

As the group were being dealt with at Victoria, more people arrived at the station associated with the initial group. These 15 people were also arrested to prevent a breach of the peace on a case-by-case basis.

All 38 people will be taken by bus to a south London police station. They will be held until police are satisfied that there is no longer a risk they will commit disorder at Carnival.

The other two arrested are in custody.

22:40hrs - Those detained at Victoria released

The thirty-eight people arrested at Victoria mainline station to prevent a breach of the peace were released at 22:00hrs.

Those arrested were taken to a south London police station. The time they remained in custody was kept under constant review
until the opportunity for them to commit a breach of the peace had passed.
Where we identified juveniles we arranged collection by a guardian or responsible adult.

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