Scotland Yard was accused of misleading its own watchdog last night after an official report on the policing of the G20 London protests was said to contain "false claims" and "gross inaccuracies".
The document, submitted to a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority yesterday, set out the police version of events during the demonstrations last month, and included claims protesters and independent observers said were misleading.
The Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, David Howarth, said the report was "full of serious inaccuracies" and questioned its claim that protesters were free to leave police cordons on the streets.
The controversial use of cordons to "kettle", or corral, people at the rally is under review by Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary.
The report stated that "whenever possible, people were allowed to leave the cordon" around the Bank of England and the Climate Camp in Bishopsgate. But accounts from hundreds of people caught inside the pens for hours indicated police refused people permission to leave.
The author of the report, assistant commissioner Chris Allison, defended the tactics of containment, telling the MPA that penning protesters, rather than dispersing them, was effective in reducing violence. But the MPA unanimously agreed to examine kettling and other public-order police tactics, in its civil liberties panel.
Other alleged inaccuracies in the Met's report included the claim that the Bishopsgate Climate Camp had blocked a "four-lane highway", and that police had supplied water to penned people.
The report also said Climate Camp protesters had "refused to divulge their plans" at a meeting with senior officers on the eve of the rally. Howarth, who mediated the meeting, said protesters had been constructive in attempts to liaise with the police. "It is time for the spinning to stop and for senior officers to ... take responsibility," Howarth said.
The report also said the Met was cooperating with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating a complaint relating to an alleged assault of a 22-year-old woman on 1 April. The IPCC has received 256 complaints relating to G20 demonstrations.
In a statement last night, the Met said: "Wherever operationally possible people were allowed out of the containment." It conceded that the Climate Camp had been set-up in a two-lane road, but said traffic had been impacted further south.
Regarding water supplies, the Met said: "Officers gave people water but kept the bottles so they could not be thrown ... Six toilets were deployed by the local authority at the request of police; these contained drinkable running water."
I was there. I'm no trouble maker, I'm not violent, this was my first protest for over 30 years, I'm capitalist through and through, no "scrounger" but a middle class professional.
I went to protest because I am outraged at my government's handling of the economy and our society and the G20's lack of intelligence and ability.
I was "kettled": for FOUR HOURS I had my liberty to move around my capital city and get home totally taken away from me. I had done nothing to provoke such a violation of my freedom. Being held for four hours, not allowed to sit down, not even being allowed to go to a toilet or get any water, was in effect a type of police-sanctioned torture. I was detained like a criminal yet I had done nothing criminal or anything remotely violent or a danger to anybody.
Every now and again the massive crowd that I was being "kettled" in were suddenly charged at by the police with batons. Let me make this very clear: those at the very front of the crowd were asking to be released from our detention, they did not move forward, there was no space for anybody to move forward, yet suddenly the police would charge into them, often shoulders first to cause maximum pain (you've seen some of the photos) forcing them to crush those of us directly behind them, sending people flying.
When we remonstrated and asked them to stop, or asked why on earth they did that, the police shouted comments such as "You want more do you?" and the provocative "Oh yeah?" beckoning with their gloved hands come on, come on ....
After recovering to their feet, or disentangling themselves from those behind them, those at the front shouted for the police to stop assaulting them and pushing us into an ever increasing small space. The response of the police to these verbal requests was to charge them again with all their force or to get their batons out and hit them.
I have never seen anything like it in my life. I stood in a state of disbelief that I was in Great Britain and this was my police force.
To all those elsewhere on the messageboards saying the woman who is shown being hit "asked for it", and "we shouldn't have been there": she didn't ask for it, she was protesting and speaking out at the police hitting another protester who was not threatening them in any way. And we should have been there, it was my right to protest. I am still bruised from my battery at the hands of the police that day.
Is it any wonder this government is behaving the way it does, our society is crumbling the way it is, when there are so many pathetic sheep out there who can't even distinguish between correct policing and thugs in uniforms, no better than the scum they pretend to protect us from.