Met police chief warns force ‘bent out of shape’ by Gaza protests as full cost revealed

Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the Met’s response had been ‘more clumsily than I would like’

The Met Police has been “bent out of shape” by the pressures of policing the London protests sparked by the conflict in Israel, commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has warned.

A report by the commissioner published on Wednesday also revealed that from 7 October to 19 November the Met spent £12.6 million connected to protest and vigils around London.

Hundreds of thousands of people have attended marches through the capital almost every weekend since Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel, with scores of arrests taking place.

Speaking at a London Policing Board meeting, Sir Mark said Operation Brocks - the Met’s response to the effects of the war in London - had involved 15,000 shifts.

Sir Mark added that the protests had required officers to be deployed from different parts of the force “more clumsily than I would like”.

Sir Mark Rowley revealed the cost of policing the protests (PA Wire)

“We are severely - and I anticipate for the long term - bent out of shape, both organisationally, and that affects many individuals,” he said. “We have got over 800 open hate crime cases that we’re working through, which will take thousands of officer hours to work through them and try and bring offenders to justice.

“And that’s in the context of, from the 7th of October to today, compared to this time last year, we’re running at a now around twelve-fold increase in anti-Semitic hate crime and three-fold increase in anti-Muslim hate crime.

“Because of our foundations - some of our HR and training and resource deployment and management not being as strong as they need to - when you’re moving big numbers of people around the organisation, we’re doing it more clumsily than I would like.”

Around 100,000 people have regularly attended marches in London (PA Wire)

Local policing has also been significantly affected with a more than 10-fold increase in anti-semitic crime and a 245% rise in Islamophobic incidents since 7 October, the commissioner explained.

The Met estimates this will require around 6,500 hours of officer time to investigate. The force has so far carried out more than 9,100 visits to religious premises and schools since the deadly attacks by Hamas in October.

The commissioner said the Met was maintaining the level of response it gives to critical and violent incidents, but more than 4,000 officer rest days had been cancelled as the increased pressures were“not sustainable”.