MR DENIS O'CONNOR CBE, QPM

21 APRIL 2009

  Q1 Chairman: Mr O'Connor, thank you very much for coming to give evidence to the Committee this morning. When you were originally asked to come and give evidence it was as the preferred candidate of the Home Secretary for the position of Chief Inspector of Constabulary. Select committees have the right to conduct pre-appointment hearings for those appointed to certain posts and yours is one of those posts. We wrote to the Home Secretary asking that you should not be formally appointed until we have had the opportunity of questioning you. We were concerned that you should not get the job before the interview, so to speak. We will be writing to the Home Secretary after this session putting our views forward about the suitability of your appointment. Since then of course we have had the public concerns about the G20 protests, and indeed your appointment by the Commissioner of Police to look into the circumstances surrounding the G20 protests, and we would like to question you about that this morning before we go on to the substantive issues concerning your new role. Can I begin by referring everyone present to the Register of Members' Interests where the interests of all the Members are noted. Can I start by asking you about the G20 protests. The Commissioner, who will be giving evidence to us next week, has already, having looked at some of the footage on television, expressed concern about the video footage of some police actions and he clearly found them disturbing. When you looked at that footage—and clearly we are all in the same position where we are relying on television and the media to provide us with that information—were you concerned or disturbed by anything that you saw?

  Mr O'Connor: Chairman, thank you for the opportunity of being here today. When I looked at those images, those snapshots, I was very concerned, and that led to a conversation between myself and the Commissioner which has subsequently led to his request that we undertake the review. I am aware of course that when we look at television we are seeing snapshots of a very big event over a very large area, but those snapshots, for somebody who is concerned about the mission of policing—and the mission of policing for me is very well expressed in the Queen's Police Medal, which is "to guard my people"—would be naturally very concerned.

  Q2  Chairman: You have had a long career with a number of police forces, for example Surrey, but in particular you worked for a great deal of time in the Met, starting as a constable and ending up as a Chief Inspector before you went on to other areas and then you came back as Assistant Commissioner. Put this footage into the context of what you have seen in your career. Is it more serious, less serious, more disturbing than the kinds of scenes that you have seen before in your very long career as a police officer?

  Mr O'Connor: Confidence in the police and concerns ebb and flow. I can go all the way back to the Scarman Inquiry to which I was seconded. I do think that this has been a focus of a lot of concern, and my objective, in discussions with the Commissioner and in reviewing this, would be not to just look at the snapshots but look at the whole picture coolly and look at all of the evidence to see whether those tactics are appropriate for the time that we are in, whether they work well for the public and for the police.

  Q3  Chairman: At the start of this inquiry do you have any preconceived views on two aspects, first of all, the issue of kettling and, secondly, the issue of the putting of the names of police officers on their uniforms or indeed the visibility of their numbers? Do you have any preconceived views before you start the inquiry?

  Mr O'Connor: In relation to the kettling issue, the containment idea, I think that has to be looked at to see what it achieves in terms of avoiding disruption, but also the cost at which that is achieved, particularly if it is used inflexibly so that people are actually penned up for hours on end. With regard to the latter I do have prejudice and preconception. I think it is utterly unacceptable, and that is it. There is no explanation, there is—

  Q4  Chairman: Sorry, what is unacceptable?

  Mr O'Connor: For people not to be wearing their numerals is utterly unacceptable. That is it. It is not a long-winded thing. It is one of those issues that is simply very clear-cut. I am very concerned that that issue has arisen during the G20 protests, and indeed subsequently, and I firmly hope that it will be rectified with some certainty. Chairman, I have over the last few days been consulting various stakeholders inside and outside policing about the terms of reference that we might apply and, if that is of some value to you, I have brought some copies which members and yourself may wish to look at.

  Q5  Chairman: That is extremely helpful. My colleagues will all ask you questions on what you have said so far but three bits of factual information. Firstly, what is the timetable for your review? When has Sir Paul said that you need to produce a report for him?

  Mr O'Connor: Chairman, we hope to produce an interim report by the end of June and a final report by September. We thought an interim report would be useful, if there are lessons to be learned, and if there are new ideas and alternative ways of looking at things, we thought it best to get those out there, because of course between now and then there will be other public order events and there will be other protest issues, so if there is something good, we would like to get it out there relatively quickly.

  Q6  Chairman: Will it be published in full?

  Mr O'Connor: It will be published in full. It will be transparent what we have found.

  Q7  Chairman: Finally in terms of the statement made by the IPCC Chairman, who is going to give evidence after you, do you think now is the time for a national debate on policing and public order?

  Mr O'Connor: I think it would be good to debate the frame in which we want the police to operate for the public, putting it deliberately in those terms. At the moment the police exercise quite a lot of discretion, as it were, on behalf of the public to try, in their terms, as they would say, to strike a balance between people wanting to go about their work and people wanting to demonstrate or to express their concerns about an issue of the day. They attempt to interpret that.

  Q8  Chairman: Have you had any conversations with the Home Secretary about this?

  Mr O'Connor: I have had no direct conversations with the Home Secretary about this.

  Q9  Chairman: Does that surprise you? Do you not think this should be led by politicians? Should not politicians be at the forefront of a discussion on an issue of policing of this kind?

  Mr O'Connor: What I would hope is that we have all collectively got a contribution to make. I can endeavour to find out the facts about tactics and good practice and the way they operate and the upside and downside of them and lay them before you. I am sure Nick will be able to say what he can find about behaviour. However, in the end there is a larger question about public policy in this country because in this country we do not put distance between the police and demonstrators—they do on the Continent—and there is an upside to that but there are also obviously potential rubbing points and difficulties and that is, as it were, part of the frame we have set for policing at the moment, obviously with human rights and other considerations. However, I cannot emphasise enough, having as it were, in some long distant past, myself been right beside the public in those very difficult situations, that it creates a different chemistry, it creates a whole set of different possibilities than if there is a gap between the police and the public.

  Q10  Tom Brake: I spent five hours inside the police kettle at the G20 protests and during that time witnessed both the good, bad and the ugly, both from the protesters and, I am afraid to say, a small minority of police officers. I think there are certain things that I would like to be certain are in your remit, and one is whether you are going to assess whether there is an increased risk to both protesters and police from the kettling process, because certainly my experience was that there was. There was an increased risk of violence and there was an increased risk also in safety terms to innocent protesters and also potentially to the police as well. Could I have an assurance that that will be covered? Also on an issue to which you have already referred in terms of officers not displaying their badges, will there be an assessment carried out of the reasons why (and perhaps we can understand why certain individual officers may have done that) there was no action by more senior officers on the day who would have witnessed other officers not displaying their badges, will the remit of your inquiry cover that as well?

  Mr O'Connor: In relation to the first point—risk—there are risks with the kettling business. If you are trapped there on your way to work, if you are pregnant, if you are elderly, if you have not had anything to drink or eat, and you are literally contained, imprisoned almost as it were, for a period of hours, then very difficult consequences can follow. As we will lay bare, the alternative to that is an approach where you allow people to leave on some filtered basis. If you can organise some cordons that people can work through and exit, that helps, sometimes that is easier to organise than others. We will look at this to see how flexible that tactic can be and whether it could alleviate a number of those risks. It may be it can; it may be in a number of circumstances it cannot. The reason why it was put there is because London—and I personally have had this experience when I have been on duty in the West End—had in the past allowed people to congregate and move more freely but that allowed some people to run through Regent Street and break windows and terrorise literally the people in the shops. So, Mr Brake, what we are into is a little bit of a dilemma here. What we have to try and do is de-risk it as much as possible so that the protesters get to protest as peacefully as possible and the other people get to go away, go home, go to their work. Your second point about wearing name badges, I will obviously remark upon that in my report because the whole point of British policing is that individuals are accountable and the route to accountability is because you know who this person is (you hope) who is in front of you because they have been licensed by the state to use force on behalf of the state and that is a very, very big power and it is a precious thing. I almost feel, if I may say, Chairman, that I should not have to make an observation about it. It is something that should happen, period.

  Q11  Chairman: Mr O'Connor, you have said it to the Committee and presumably you expect it to be followed now. There is no reason to wait for the interim report. You would expect every police officer in the police force—and you are the Chief Inspector—to have either a name badge on or a number that is visibly displayed, as of now?

  Mr O'Connor: I would expect people in public order and other situations to wear their numerals so that the public can identify them. It acts as a good check and balance for all parties involved in those transactions.

  Q12  Mr Winnick: You said to the Chairman, Mr O'Connor, that you were disturbed by some aspects of what you saw during the particular G20 demonstration that we are concerned about. What aspects were you concerned about?

  Mr O'Connor: Mr Winnick, I do have the terms of reference here which I am happy to circulate to members.

  Chairman: One of the clerks will take your pile of copies and circulate them.

  Q13  Mr Winnick: If you could just tell us.

  Mr O'Connor: My concern was obviously about the individual incidents where officers, on the face of it, appear to break with their colleagues and assault people. In this country we expect the very best from our police, quite properly, and police officers who give their lives, as Gary Toms did, sadly, very recently, do it for a very noble cause, so when you see something that does not square with that noble cause, it is disheartening and hugely concerning; of course, it is. What I am going to look at, though, and hopefully you have got the terms of reference in front of you, is the tactics that actually were deployed in that situation to see whether those tactics, in a sense, setting aside the individual behaviour issue, were ones that were more or less likely to produce those outcomes, and whether there was more likelihood because they were closer.

  Q14  Chairman: What page is this?

  Mr O'Connor: If I can refer you to "terms of reference". These have been amended almost on the way here, if you bear with me. Mr Winnick, if you look at terms of reference, page 2, in the light of G20 "to assess the effectiveness and impact of current public order tactics". Containment is one we have spoken about already; the use of force, that is the display of force. It is the combination.

  Q15  Mr Winnick: We have your terms of reference here and we are grateful to you, Mr O'Connor. I wonder if I could ask you about a particular incident which shocked many people, certainly myself, and emails I have received show that a lot of people were shocked, and that is a particular scene where the police officer slaps the woman across the face and having done that uses a stick against her legs. You saw that yourself presumably on television?

  Mr O'Connor: I have seen television clips.

  Q16  Mr Winnick: What was your reaction when you saw that?

  Mr O'Connor: My reaction to it was I was very uncomfortable with it.

  Q17  Mr Winnick: Uncomfortable?

  Mr O'Connor: I was very uncomfortable with it, I was concerned by it, but what I would have to say is this: the object of conducting an inquiry into the tactics and into the behaviour is to unpick all of that and look at the whole picture so we see whether the tactics contributed to that, or whether that was a particular piece of behaviour, or whether there was anything else that we presently do not know about, that occurred in that sequence of events.

  Q18  Chairman: This is Nicola Fisher?

  Mr O'Connor: Yes.

  Q19  Mr Winnick: Would you agree, Mr O'Connor, that what we saw is basically incompatible with British policing?

  Mr O'Connor: What I saw did not impress me that this was the British way.