Police fear ‘draconian’ new protest laws could increase danger to officers and damage public confidence

New bill would enable the suspicionless stop and search of peaceful protesters and make ‘locking on’ a crime

(PA) (PA Archive)

Police fear that controversial new protest powers could put them in danger and damage public confidence.

Senior officers did not request large parts of the new Public Order Bill and were not formally consulted by the government, The Independent understands.

The bill would create a new criminal offence of “locking on” and orders to ban people from demonstrating if they have not committed a crime.

It also includes powers for police to stop and search peaceful protesters without suspicion, or while checking for items that could be used to attach themselves to objects or each other.

It is Priti Patel’s second attempt to bring forward laws that were defeated in the House of Lords last year, where peers branded them “draconian and anti-democratic”.

Owen West, a retired chief superintendent who specialised in public order, said a lot of his former colleagues were “scratching their heads” over the new bill.

“They are feeling quite nervous because Priti Patel and others will surely be anticipating a very low threshold for intervention,” he told The Independent.

“They recognise that following the murder of Sarah Everard and several other horrendous issues involving the police, legitimacy really is fragile at the moment and is at risk. They are nervous about the prospect of further damage to their relationship with the protesting community and the wider public”

The government has named groups including Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil in official documents justifying the measures, and Mr West said some officers were “frustrated” that it was not addressing their concerns.

“There’s a crucial political issue that needs dealing with and the response of the government is to criminalise the protests and hand them over to police without getting to the issue of why people are protesting in the first place,” he added.

He also raised concerns that police officers could suffer higher levels of abuse and assaults over allegations they are clamping down on protest, following “kill the bill” demonstrations over previous proposals that spilled over into riots in Bristol last year.

“The government seems to want to put police on a collision course with the public,” Mr West said.

The Independent understands that the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) did not request a locking on offence, and that the government’s stop and search proposals go beyond its suggestion of an expanded authority to follow up intelligence that individuals are carrying specific items to cause serious disruption.

In an equality impact assessment, the Home Office said the measures were justified because evolving tactics “have led to disproportionate amounts of disruption” and public order laws were outdated.

It said it had consulted with police chiefs and commissioned HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) “to understand what could be done” on protest policing.

But the only area in the bill covered by the inspection was powers concerning locking on, and it concluded: “Most interviewees did not wish to criminalise protest actions through the creation of a specific offence concerning locking-on.”

Human rights groups have raised concern over the proposals, which follow the enactment of a separate bill that enables demonstrations to be restricted over noise and make it a crime for protesters to fail to follow restrictions they “ought” to have known about.

Sam Grant, the head of policy and campaigns at Liberty, said: “These rehashed measures to crack down on protest are yet another power grab from a government determined to shut down accountability.

“Protest is a right, not a gift from the state, and measures like these are designed to stop ordinary people making their voices heard. Parliamentarians and the general public rejected these dangerous measures when they were first rushed through in the policing bill, but the government has refused to listen.”

Oliver Feeley-Sprague, of Amnesty International UK, said: “These laws are deeply authoritarian and completely unnecessary. The police haven’t even called for them, knowing they already have a wide range of powers to prevent serious disruption.

“Many are concerned that it will actually place front-line police officers in a worse situation forcing them to make impossible judgement calls around vague and ill-defined powers.”

The HMIC inspection considered a proposal to create new stop and search powers to prevent serious disruption but opinion was divided.

The report said that while the powers could prevent disruption and act as a deterrent, “they must be subject to strong and effective safeguards if they are to comply with human rights and their use in individual cases must be justified and proportionate”.

It said that while many senior officers broadly supported the concept, “many interviewees from both inside and outside the police service expressed dissenting and cautionary views”. “Some police officers highlighted operational difficulties in the targeted use of the power,” the report added.

“One officer reflected that the proposal had ‘complications’ – for instance, whether an otherwise innocuous item was really intended to be used to lock on. He said that having a tube of superglue in your pocket, or chain and padlock that you intend to use to lock your bike, ‘doesn’t prove intent and presents difficulties’.”

The equality impact assessment said that existing stop and search powers, mainly targeting weapons and drugs, disproportionately affect ethnic minorities and there was a risk of “indirect discrimination”.

It noted that black people are currently seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people under powers requiring suspicion, and 14 times more likely under suspicionless powers.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the use of stop and search powers in relation to the public order offences in scope of this bill will have a disproportionate impact on people on the grounds of race if the use of these powers is fair and based on evidence and intelligence and not based on the protected characteristics of those attending a particular protest,” the document added.

A YouGov poll from March, which found that almost two thirds of the general public supported making locking on a criminal offence if it could cause “serious disruption”. The draft law sets the threshold at potential serious disruption to “two or more individuals or an organisation”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental part of our democracy and that will never change.

“However, the rise of criminal, disruptive and self-defeating guerrilla tactics – carried out by a selfish few in the name of protest – not only causes misery for the general public, but also tears police away from communities where they are needed.

“This is why the Public Order Bill backs the police to take proactive action and prevent such disruption happening in the first place.”