Two of Scotland Yard's most senior commanders have been forced into an embarrassing apology to MPs after it emerged the force had misled a Parliamentary Committee over the presence of covert officers at the G20 protests.
Acting Met Commissioner Tim Godwin and Commander Bob Broadhurst told MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committe that Commander Broadhurst had been mistaken when he claimed no covert or plain clothes officers had been on duty at the protests in April 2009.
It has since emerged that both plain-clothes and covert officers were deployed.
Speaking to the Committee, Mr Broadhurst said: "May I first of all apologise. When I appeared before you on May 19, 2009, I gave you some information that now appears to be inaccurate.
"For that, I apologise, but at the time I made it it was true to the best of my knowledge, otherwise I certainly would not have said it at the time...I hadn't asked for covert policing at any of those protests and wasn't aware that I had any."
Asked if the Met Commissioner should also have known about the use of covert officers during the G20 protests, Mr Broadhurst said: "No sir. It's my operation. I should have known, I didn't and I've apologised."
Mr Broadhurst's admission raised questions over how the man in charge of the policing operation that day could be unaware that covert officers from his own force were being used.
He was also unaware that plain-clothes officers from the City of London Police were deployed at observation posts.
When he gave evidence in the month following the 2009 demonstrations, Mr Broadhurst had said: "It would have been dangerous for them to put plain-clothes officers in a crowd like that."
But questions arose about his evidence in the wake of the recent unmasking of undercover officer Mark Kennedy, who attended many demonstrations during seven years living as an undercover officer among green activists.
Mr Godwin, who also apologised to the MPs, defended his commander's actions, blaming the large scale of the operation and saying inquiries into what went wrong were under way.
However, the apologies have been met with scepticism by some within the protest movement.
Bradley Day, from Climate Camp, said: "The idea that you should have your entire life infiltrated just for expressing the right to protest is absolutely disgusting.
"The real issue now is to stop this ever happening again, and the police could start by revealing what's happened in the past rather than just making feeble apologies to MPs".
Source: http://news.sky.com
No comments:
Post a Comment