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Cold water poured on water cannon

by Mark Rowe

The London Assembly has urged London Mayor Boris Johnson not to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on water cannon for the Metropolitan Police. An Assembly motion agreed 20 votes to five does not believe an adequate case has been made for the purchase of water cannon in London.

Caroline Pidgeon AM [Assembly Member], who proposed the motion, said: “The purchase of water cannon and their potential deployment on London’s streets moves us significantly away from Robert Peel’s principles of policing by consent.

“With the Met’s budget under pressure we would rather see the cash spent on additional frontline police officers than poured down the drain into something that the Mayor claims would be rarely seen or used.”

Joanne McCartney AM, who seconded the motion, said: “The Mayor has not made a clear case for the use of water cannon on London’s streets, and the Met Police say they have no specific intelligence that they need them before the summer. The effectiveness of water cannon in fast moving situations like the August Riots of 2011 is also limited, even the Mayor himself has said they wouldn’t have been used.

“The Mayor should not be rushing through this decision which fundamentally alters the relationship between the police and the communities they serve. The lessons from the riots were clear; we needed more officers deployed more quickly. Water cannon are no replacement for a properly resourced police service, since 2010 we have lost over 3,000 police officers in London.”

Case for

After the riots in August 2011, the Met reviewed their response to serious public order events and concluded that there was a ‘small, limited role’ for water cannon in dealing with the most serious disorder. Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, has asked the Mayor of London for authority to purchase three existing water cannon from the German Federal Police at a reduced cost of around £30,000 each so that they are available to his officers in advance of a longer-term, national solution being available. He has committed that these water cannon would be ‘rarely used and rarely seen’.

Before water cannon can be purchased the Home Secretary has to authorise their use in England and Wales. The London Mayor has accepted the broad principle for the Metropolitan Police to have access to water cannon. Background documents on this link – http://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/policing-crime/consultations/water-cannon

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