Secret U.K. police manual tells how to break up pickets

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 17

Secret U.K. police manual tells how to break up pickets

By

NICK DAVIES

of the

London “Observer”

British police chiefs are facing a storm of criticism after the disclosure of secret plans to use allegedly illegal paramilitary tactics against pickets and demonstrators.

Detailed instructions on baton charges and advice on the “tactical use of noise” are contained in a confidential manual, “Public Order Tactical Options,” compiled by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The manual is considered so sensitive that no officer below the rank of Assistant Chief Constable has been allowed to see it and no police authorities have been consulted about its contents. But four key sections were disclosed during the Orgreave riot trial which ended in Sheffield last month with the acquittal of all 14 defendants. They contained instructions which lawyers say are unlawful. A barrister, Patrick O’Connor, who acted for some of the Orgreave defendants, says: “They are quite clearly an incitement to police officers to commit criminal offences.”

In a section on the use of short shields, one manoeuvre suggests that 20 officers with truncheons should line up in two rows of 10 and then “run at the crowd in pairs to disperse and/or incapacitate.” Lawyers say that it is an instruction to commit assaults occasioning actual bodily harm. It also appears to breach official guidelines on the use of truncheons which say that these should be used only as a last resort or in self-defence.

Another manoeuvre in the same section suggests that all the officers at the scene should run forward to “disperse the crowd and incapacitate missile throwers and ringleaders by striking in a controlled manner with batons about the arms and legs or torso so as not to cause serious injury.” The lawyers say that this, too, is

an instruction to assault and question why officers should be told to “incapacitate” suspects instead of arresting them. They also argue that evidence at the Orgreave trial showed that, in the heat of the moment, “striking in a controlled manner” is an almost unattainable objective.

Other sections deal with deployment of horses and the use of long shields. Some manoeuvres are explicitly designed to intimidate demonstrators. Mounted officers are to disperse crowds rapidly by using “fear created by the impetus of horses.” One detailed manoeuvre suggests that horses should be lined up in a double rank and cantered into the crowd.

A section on the tactical use of noise suggests that “chanting and rhythmic sounds” have a calming effect on officers; discusses the use of “battle cries”; and recommends the rhythmic beating of shields with truncheons — a practice which was common in the miners' strike until Chief Constables reacted to public criticism and forbade it.

The manual was produced by a working party of Chief Constables in the wake of the riots in 1980 and 1981. The Association of Chief Police Officers has refused to discuss the manual on the grounds that it was confidential. The association would not say whether it had taken legal advice during the manual’s drafting. Clive Soley, the Labour Party spokesman on policing, said: “This is a classic case of order being imposed at the expense of law. It is part of a deeply disturbing trend for police to be used by the Government to deal with social dissent.”

Mr Soley has written to the Home Secretary to protest and to ask for the rest of the manual to be published.