The policing of two rival protests in Brighton at the weekend was cited by a senior officer today (Thursday 18 June) as an example of officers trying to “get the right balance”.
Deputy Chief Constable Paul Court was responding to police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne who asked whether there was “two-tier policing” in Sussex.
Mrs Bourne asked the question at a “performance and accountability meeting” today after what she said were “issues in Hampshire”.
Violence protests took place in Southampton after Vickrum Digwa received a life sentence for the murder of Henry Nowak, with two people arrested amid claims of two-tier policing.
The claims arose after Digwa, a Sikh, appeared to have been believed when claiming that his victim attacked him. Nowak, an 18-year-old student, was handcuffed and died shortly after from stab wounds.
Mr Court said that there had been events across the country – and last weekend the force dealt with a “challenging public order operation”, with between 3,000 and 4,000 people protesting in Brighton on Saturday (13 June).
He said that the Stop the Boats protest attracted “a couple of hundred” people, with the counter-protest, the Carnival Against Fascism, drawing a crowd that ran into the thousands.
Mr Court said: “I think the policing of that protest was successful, with eight arrests in total.
“The day went off without any major incidents and that’s down to the professionalism and approach we take in Sussex with our policing style.
“We’re experts, I would suggest, in our policing public order operations. We police many protests in comparison with colleagues in many other forces in the country.
“I’m proud of our track record in our proportionate, fair and legitimate policing of such events.
“I think the weekend was a demonstration of that. It’s a challenging time at the moment in communities. There is division.
“Policing is often stood on the edge of both sides of that. We work hard to make sure, particularly in the events such as we saw at the weekend, that we get that balance right.
“It is challenging sometimes. We’re not going to please all the people all of the time and often we can’t please anybody on either side of a debate or a protest in terms of the actions that we take.
“We will always seek to police in line with our human rights obligations. We will continue to police in line with our code of ethics around our public services and impartiality and making sure we balance the needs of all people.
“I think what we saw at the weekend was just how Sussex Police does that.”
Mrs Bourne said that, at the next meeting next month, she would want to ask about the College of Policing Race Action Plan.
She said: “We’ve had quite a bit of correspondence into the office following that. Hopefully that will reassure members of the public.”
