Two-tier policing of protests is REAL: Damning report into the Met calls for Labour mayor Sadiq Khan to be stripped of control
Two-tier policing of protests is 'not merely a perception but a reality' in Britain's biggest force, a damning report has revealed.
Scotland Yard is prioritising the rights of demonstrators over the ordinary public, failing to make arrests and treating some protest groups more leniently, which may lead the public to believe 'the forces of law and order have lost control of the streets and yielded control to a mob,' according to a new assessment.
A report by the think tank Policy Exchange has called for the
Metropolitan Police to be put back into 'special measures' due to its failure to handle protests properly and tackle runaway rates of mobile phone thefts, burglary and shoplifting.
In a stark assessment of the Commissioner Sir
Mark Rowley's three years in office, the report points to public confidence in the force falling to an all-time low as many residents and visitors believe 'there is a culture of impunity to
crime in
London'.
It comes as the force is solving only a tiny fraction of thefts, identifying the culprit in merely 1 in 20 robberies and burglaries, 1 in 13 shoplifting offences and 1 in 179 street muggings.
Now the Policy Exchange wants London Mayor Sir
Sadiq Khan to be stripped of responsibility for the Met's oversight, saying the Home Secretary should be given the power to ensure the force's performance improves.
Entitled 'A Long, Long Way To Go', the report criticises the force for choosing 'to prioritise the rights of protestors over the rights of the wider public' and accuses officers of doing more to protect Muslims over the Jewish community in various demonstrations.
It says: 'With the apparently differential treatment of different groups based on either the cause of the protest or the identity of those protesting, it has become increasingly clear that
"two-tier policing" is not merely a perception but a reality.
'This inconsistent application of police powers and the law is ..........