Another lie from senior G20 police
In the news today, one of the senior police commanders from the G20, Bob Broadhurst, has been caught out in lies he told to Parliament in the aftermath of that operation. From the Guardian (emphasis added):
Responding to previous reports that plain-clothes officers were deployed at the G20 protests last year, Commander Bob Broadhurst, who runs the Met's public order unit CO11, told a parliamentary committee in May last year: "The only officers we deploy for intelligence purposes at public order are forward intelligence team officers who are wearing full police uniforms with a yellow jacket with blue shoulders."
In a statement this week, the Met said plain-clothes officers were frequently deployed in "day to day" policing. "It is key that as a police service we observe and gather information to provide us with a relevant and up-to-date intelligence picture of what to expect in terms of protest groups and public order policing."
I can only assume that if a normal person lied to a Parliamentary committee that would be considered a bad thing. I'm also going to go out on a limb here and assume that absolutely nothing will happen to Commander Broadhurst and his career prospects as a result of this lie.
He seems to have lied twice about the plain-clothes police (initially saying none, then 'only City of London', and now 'Met too'). Do we really believe he didn't check thoroughly after the first time? That he was unaware of officers from his own force involved in the operation for which he was Gold Commander? He's had multiple chances to be honest, in front of the MPA, in front of Parliament, to the press and to the public, and he's failed to do so.
He also changed his story on another issue halfway through the MPA meeting I attended after the G20 protests, and in a subsequent meeting said he had "heard nothing about" something which he'd been told about at the first one, so frankly I'm not impressed with his potential for honesty. About his only good point was that he seemed more honest than his colleague Chris Allison, but then Allison was doing most of the talking at the time, so he had more opportunity for spin and deceit.
