Protesting police put on an overflowing show of force against Sheehy report at Wembley

ABOUT 23,000 off-duty police officers staged an unprecedented rally in London last night to protest against the Sheehy report.

The attendance at the rally - organised at a cost of pounds 250,000 by staff associations representing lower ranking officers - was around half the officers off duty at any one time.

Wembley Arena was full more than an hour before the rally began; 6,000 officers were put in two overflow halls and an estimated 3,000 were locked out. The officers, brought by bus from all over the United Kingdom, heard a succession of speakers condemn the Sheehy report to wild applause. Alan Eastwood, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents 127,000 officers up to chief inspector, said it was a 'monumental blunder' which had led the service to the edge of a cliff.

The report, published last month, recommends replacing the national across-the-board annual pay increase with performance-related pay. Its 270 recommendations also advocate fixed-term contracts, the end of casual overtime, raising the retirement age from 55 to 60 and abolishing three managerial ranks.

Mr Eastwood said the police would be turned into a commodity open to manipulation and exploitation by the Government. He said the report, which followed a committee of inquiry chaired by Sir Patrick Sheehy, chairman of BAT Industries, the tobacco conglomerate, would create a service based on short contracts. 'A force stripped of its identity. A force without shape or expectations . . . cynically hired and learning to cynically serve, semi-casualised, a force whose members expect to be used and turned-over . . . Policemen under Sheehy will not be policemen they will be units of manpower. Will units of manpower take the same risks?'

In a reference to Kenneth Clarke, the former Home Secretary, who commissioned the report, Mr Eastwood said it was the work of a 'vainglorious politician who decided that the police were fair game for a shake-up'. It had produced an 'arrogant, hectoring and dismissive report' which ignored evidence put before it.

Richard Wells, chief constable of South Yorkshire, said that the changes would centralise power, which could be abused by future governments of extreme political persuasions.

The rally heard that 15 chief constables, who personally stand to benefit from the report, had sent messages of support. Paul Condon, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that some of proposals were 'fundamentally wrong'.

Other speakers included Tony Blair, Labour's home affairs spokesman, and the Liberal Democrats' spokesman, Robert Maclennan. Mr Blair said the Government was undermining the principles on which the police depended. 'The case for reform is whether it helps to cut crime, whether it makes our communities safer, not whether it allows the Treasury to cut corners or satisfies some mistaken political dogma.'

Last night's rally was the largest display of police anger in Britain. Their last major protest was a series of marches and meetings during the late 1970s over low pay.

Retaking the streets, page 23

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