Brian Paddick writes… Policing the riots

• [Sep 28] Brian Paddick* writes: I AM on the horns of a dilemma. I served Londoners in the Metropolitan Police for more than 30 years and loyalty to my former colleagues runs deep. As a sergeant, I faced bricks and petrol bombs on the streets of Brixton in 1981. So I know what officers went through during the recent riots. I later became one of a small cadre of advanced trained public order senior officers who took charge of policing protests and big events in London. So I know the strategies and tactics for dealing with riots. Yet I, like most Londoners, was disappointed by the overall response of the police to the recent riots. So should I remain loyal to the police or should I criticise them?

In August, the police shot a man dead in Tottenham, North London and a peaceful protest at the police station escalated into a riot. I had faced a similar situation when I was the Police Commander in Lambeth in 2001, when a police marksman shot and killed a member of the public. In 2001, the 'peaceful' demonstration degenerated into rioting as it did in August. The police should have remembered what happened in 2001 and realised that the demonstration in Tottenham had the potential to turn violent. The police should have had sufficient suitably trained and equipped officers on duty to deal with the rioting. I honestly believe, if they had arrested looters on the Saturday night, the rioting would not have spread to other parts of London and to other parts of the country. It was the pictures of rioters walking past police officers with stolen goods, unchallenged, that encouraged further rioting across the country.

I know for a fact that there are enough suitably trained and equipped officers in London to deal with most riot situations. The highly trained Territorial Support Group are supported by brave volunteer officers who undergo very realistic training, four days a year, who police demonstrations in addition to their ordinary patrol duties. Not for the first time (senior officers made a similar miscalculation during the first student protest last year when the Conservative Party Headquarters were stormed) officers' lives were put at risk because there were not enough of them on duty to deal with the violence. The Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin later admitted that they did not have enough officers available on the Saturday night, or on the Sunday night in London, to deal with the rioting.

What finally brought the violence to an end? It certainly was not CCTV. Images recorded by television cameras may help with post-event investigation but as we so clearly saw, CCTV does not deter people from committing crime. It was having enough police officers visible on our streets, arresting those responsible, that put an end to the rioting and it is having more police officers visible on our streets that is what is going to make us safer, not more CCTV. And it is not the severity of the penalty that deters criminals; it is the certainty of getting caught. Why should criminals be concerned about the penalty if they believe the police won't catch them?

Police officers on patrol across the country put their lives on the line for us every day of the week. They do an incredibly difficult and dangerous job on our behalf. I know what they face because I have faced it myself. But my role, as a prospective Mayor of London, is to speak up for Londoners. I will defend our dedicated frontline police officers to the hilt but when their senior officers let Londoners down, and their own frontline staff down, I will stand-up for Londoners, despite my loyalty to the police. That is what the Mayor should do and it is precisely what both this Mayor and the previous Mayor have failed to do, unswerving as they have been in their support for the police, irrespective of what the police do or what Londoners say.

Thankfully the new Met Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, has been saying all the right things and shows every sign of turning the situation around at the top of the Met. I have described him publicly as "impressive". He appears to be providing the leadership both the public and his own officers deserve and I hope the respect and support that I have given to the overwhelming majority of front line officers in the past can be extended to those at the top of the Metropolitan Police. But that depends on them changing, not me.

* Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London

• Lib Dem Voice