Monday 21 January 2013

Independent Thanet Councillor and organiser of the Ramsgate Anti-Live Animal Export campaign, Ian Driver slammed a report claiming policing the 2-year old protest has cost £405,000 as “being a gross underestimate”


The report written by Kent Chief Constable, Ian Learmouth,  on the orders of Kent Police Commissioner Anne Barnes, follows 100s  of e-mails demanding an investigation into the cost of policing the protest and the controversial use of Section 14 of the Public Order Act Kent Police to restrict the civil rights of demonstrators.
Said Driver “The Chief Constable’s report is misleading. It only considers the direct wage costs of policing the protests at Ramsgate Port. It does not include the cost of logistical support, intelligence gathering activities, and legal advice. If you add these together the real cost of managing the protest is closer to £1million so far. This is money which would be much better spent on catching criminals instead of policing a small group of mainly pacifist, vegetarian  women”.
Driver claims the Chief Constable has “sexed-up” his report with misleading and exaggerated claims to justify Kent Police’s “austerity busting spending binge and its undemocratic use of Section 14 of the Public Order Act to restrict the civil rights of protestors”.

“The report suggests that the protestors are an unruly gang bent on causing chaos. The truth is that in almost 2 years there has been only one minor case of damage to property.  The few injuries that have happened have been the result of over-zealous police officers wrestling protestors to the ground.  I think Saturday night on Ramsgate High Street is a greater threat to public order than demonstrators at Ramsgate Port.
“The Chief Constable has also manipulated arrest figures to give the impression that protestors are militant anarchists who need to be controlled. Out of 15 arrests cited, 5 were not related to the protest. Of the remaining 10, only one person has been prosecuted and this was thrown out of court by the judge on appeal. This tells me that the alleged offenses have been very, very minor, if indeed any offenses have been committed at all”.
“I believe that the Chief Constable’s report is an indefensible justification of  unnecessary public spending and the unfair restriction of  the civil rights of many local people. The report provides no hard evidence to support such actions”

Driver then went on to express his disappointment that Kent Police Commissioner Anne Barnes was supporting this “flawed”  report.
He said that a picture on her website of Police with riot shields placed next to the report, suggested Barnes felt that the protestors were trouble makers.  
“I call on Anne Barnes to come to down the next protest and see for herself what her budget is actually being spent on.  If she does she might change her mind.”

 

For more information contact Ian Driver on 07866588766

10 comments:

  1. Ian Driver's very evident anti-police bias shines through and only illustrates what a good thing it was that he did not become Police Commissioner for Kent.

    One also wonders what the damage to transporters and drivers might have been without a police presence at these demonstrations. All too frequently so called peace protester can turn very nasty if allowed to get away with it.

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  2. As we know, you can do anything with statistics. Only last week Anne Barnes was claiming that she was adding an extra 100 staff to Kent Police including 20 on the streets. We are currently seeing cuts of 500 in police on the beat and 1000 in back room staff. Pull the other one Anne Barnes.

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  3. Anon 09:32, I would suggest that it is you that is pulling the other one. I have no axe to grind for Anne Barnes, indeed I voted for another candidate, but she has only been in the job five minites and can only comment on things happening in her tenure. The cuts made previously are hardly down to her and, in any event, there is no actual evidence anywhere on line to substantiate the figures you suggest. Perhaps you got them out of some newspaper looking for a headline.

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    1. Tom, you need to get up to speed with whats happend and is happening in Kent. The cuts are still on going. Take a look at this report of the police force cuts: BBC Kent News.

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    2. If anyone needs to get up to speed it is you, 15:51, for you are relying on a News item dated February 2011, that is nearly two years old. What the new commissioner was being critcised for was something she said this year.

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  4. Anne Barnes was chairman of the Kent Police Authority for several years she is not a newcomer to managing Policing strategy and budgets - quite the reverse

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    1. The powers she may have enjoyed as chairman of the former police authority are very different to those of Police Commissioner and, in any event, it does not change the fact that the only evidence produced to support the alleged Kent Police cuts is a two year old news item by the notoriously biased BBC. That ain't evidence but simply hearsay.

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  5. Well said Cllr Driver: very few arrests and mainly trumped-up charges. The Police should be arresting the lorry drivers and owners - with the RSPCA and TDC support - for animal cruelty. The £205k is funded by the public and the Port owned by the public - nobody seems to support this disgusting trade yet it continues. The sooner this disgusting trade is stopped from Ramsgate and elsewhere the better.

    Ann Barnes hasn't yet provided any policies some 3 months after the election and after several years heading up the Police authority. It's starting to look like a pointless name change rather than meaningful reform so far. Maybe the next elected Commissioner will hit the ground running.

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  6. Somebody with an appalling lack of understanding of what constitutes a criminal offence or the powers and responsibilities of police, is always calling for arrests on these pages of everyone from councillors and councillors officers to lorry drivers and livestock exporters.

    Please do try to get it into your evidently dense skull that the live animal exports trade, however repugnant it may be to many people, is still legal and the police cannot arrest those that operate it. If you want change, lobby your MEP for it is from Brussels that such change must come.

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    1. Animal cruelty is the relevant offence Tom, for an ex-copper you seem especially dim in how modern policing works hence your retirement. While your views that everything is wonderful in Thanet from Manston pollution to Pleasurama etc is naive if not wilfully stupid.

      Your views would no doubt draw few readers on your own blog hence your dreary and incessant comments here like a sad attention-seeking pensioner.

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