Priti Despicable

[malvolio]

Where's the lie? She wanted the police to break up protest gatherings but criticized the way they actually handled it.

Exactly. And a neat demonstration of why the Guardian's reportage is not to be trusted...

[xoggoth]

Where's the lie? She wanted the police to break up protest gatherings but criticized the way they actually handled it.

[DaveB]

Courtesy of @Coldwar_steve

[SueEllen]

So she lies to the police as well as the people.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-everard-vigil


For a few hours at least last Sunday, the Metropolitan police and their embattled commissioner appeared on the brink. Assailed from all sides over their handling of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, there seemed every chance Dame Cressida Dick would have to quit the force she has been in charge of since 2017.

Instead she survived, as the Home Office and then Downing Street eventually signalled they retained confidence in her, despite the disturbing scenes of her officers manhandling women.

But the support she received from the home secretary, Priti Patel, raised questions about what role, if any, Patel played behind the scenes before the vigil on Saturday evening. A memo leaked to the Guardian offers some clues.

On Friday as the police and the vigil’s organisers were heading to court over the legality of such an event, a message was sent to all police chiefs making Patel’s position clear. She wanted them to stop people gathering at vigils. She also promised she would personally urge people not to gather – but she never did.

Though the police are operationally independent, the home secretary had made her views clear, which made her criticisms of the way officers broke up the Clapham event particularly galling, according to some police chiefs who spoke to the Guardian.

As a result, some chiefs feel policing was “hung out to dry” when Patel criticised pictures of officers manhandling women at the vigil, rebuked the Met commissioner and ordered an inquiry.

One chief constable said the message from Patel and the government before the vigil had been clear, that a ban on gatherings had to be enforced.

Tensions are now running high between police and ministers. A government source hit back at any complaints from within policing, saying that “pinning women to the floor and dragging them away from Clapham Common bandstand was an independent operational decision” made by the police themselves.

Police chiefs and the policing minister, Kit Malthouse, held a meeting on Friday morning last week in which he supported a ban on the vigil and others planned around the country. Following those discussions, a memo was sent to all police chiefs in England from Operation Talla, the codename for the national police coordination effort for the Covid pandemic.

The Guardian has learned what the document said and how it revealed what police feel Patel expected them to do if people gathered to mourn the 33-year-old marketing executive.

Entitled “Vigils following the murder investigation of Sarah Everard”, it begins “Dear Chief constables” and advises “early engagement” with the organisers of the planned vigils.

The document from the National Police Chiefs’ Council goes on: “We understand the strength of feeling. Covid regulations do not permit large gatherings. This issue has been discussed with the policing minister this morning who is supportive of our position. In support of this, the home secretary will also be issuing a message to the public later today that will discourage people gathering in person.”

The document states what police were expected to do, having declared that this position had government support. It says: “People should conduct their vigil using alternative means and in accordance with the law. Police must take a consistent approach and cannot waive the regulations for any one type of gathering.”

Senior policing sources say there was no doubt of what the government wanted to be done as forces wrestled with how to act. One chief said: “Chiefs would have thought there was a clear understanding that the government was requiring us to enforce the regulations.”

What ministers saw unfold on Saturday, however, was beyond their expectations. Patel tweeted comments saying the scenes of women being dragged off by male police officers were “upsetting”. She demanded a report and then on Sunday is said to have given Dick a dressing down, saying her explanation was unsatisfactory and ordering an inquiry.