Protesters outsmarted G20 police with website technology

Published on Tuesday 7 July 2009 22:04

G20 police were outwitted by protesters using mobile phones to access social networking sites such as Facebook, a report has found.

As officers struggled to communicate using police radios, demonstrators used advanced technology to react quickly to events, the police watchdog said.

Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, Denis O'Connor, said protesters armed with "high-specification mobile phones" could access websites quickly and create a "spider web of communications".

As a result, officers were "less well informed" than protesters about what was going on, the report found. "Technology has allowed for a more flexible and responsive protest community," it said.

The report into officers' public order tactics was ordered by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson in the wake of public outrage over allegations of police heavy-handedness following the death of the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson.

Its interim findings pointed to serious concerns about police tactics for handling public order, and called for a wide-ranging review of techniques and training.

Mr O'Connor warned officers risked losing the confidence of the public if changes were not made to policing protests.

Public order training and tactics were "inadequate for the modern day", the report said, and officers were more interested in the lawfulness of protests than in allowing them to go ahead.

Senior Metropolitan Police officers were not sufficiently aware of human rights laws, Mr O'Connor said, and he criticised police use of containment to pen in demonstrators on the day Mr Tomlinson died, calling it "inconsistent".

Changes were needed as soon as possible to "meet the challenges of the 21st century", and ahead of the Olympic Games in 2012, he said.