Riot police want better laws and leadership

“We don’t need the Army – we need the order to charge”, is the top headline on the Police Inspector Blog which questions force tactics in dealing with rioters.

The anonymous serving senior police officer writes: “Many people are becoming very angry that we refuse to move our lines and baton charge the rioters.

“I have run around… trying to understand why we are being ordered to stay static; the only explanation I can find is that Gold Command are concerned about the sensitivity of the target group.”

The Inspector said officers attending a briefing had asked for guarantees that individual officers would not be suspended or prosecuted if they used force and a rioter was seriously injured: “This was not forthcoming”.

He describes the damage as “unlike anything I have ever seen, even in Belfast in the bad old days” and believes the public wants major force to be used before things get completely out of hand.

Over at The Thinking Policeman blog – “the ramblings of a police inspector” – anger is directed at a criminal justice system that is “totally ineffective and that holds no fear for criminals.

“Last week the police were criticised for being too hard on protesters. This week we are too soft. When the ashes are raked over this will need a wholesale change in policies, not just laying the blame at the door of the police.”

The events of the past few days highlight what police have been saying about the weakness of the justice system and feral youth, according to PC Bloggs, a serving policewoman.

To prevent it happening again she suggests locking up those who are convicted “for serious periods of time”.

But she predicts that most will not be charged as “the CPS folds under their stories of ‘I was just walking home’ and most will be back out the same day and back out on the streets.”