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Dame Cressida Dick OBE QPM
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service in London
By e-mail to: Cressida.Dick@XXX.XXXXXX.XX
Date: 02-June 2020 13:59PM
Dear Cressida Dick
Thank you for your officer’s response [21/05/2020] to my previous complaint about police behaviour against Lockdown protest and my receipt of the apology offered to me concerning the exceedingly demeaning manner in which I was dealt with by your force.
I am now writing to you in order to complain about similar serious matters of liberty and justice.
On Saturday 30 May 2020 protesters and picnickers gathered at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, London.
I personally witnessed many arrests for what were protests and the attempted criminalization of picnickers by the police.
Under the Coronavirus Act and Guidelines demonstrations are not ‘essential’ activities and are banned. So at our symbolic site of British liberty one is now banned from protesting against Lockdown because of Lockdown.
This frightening ‘1984’ reality was publicized today by Niall McCrae in London’s The Salisbury Review under a headline that rightly spells both national embarrassment and utter ridicule for your actions and those of your force:‘The Met crawls up the backside of the left’ https://www.salisburyreview.com/blog/the-met-crawls-up-the-backside-of-the-left/ [as below, if your police firewall prohibits access].
The actions of the Government, you and your officers are against our citizen rights under the Human Rights legislation.
Many of your officers on Saturday were extremely unhappy about the untenable situation that both you and our Government have placed them in. They raised these concerns personally with me, requesting of me that their views were not verbatim recorded.
I personally witnessed and video recorded overzealous policing against Lockdown protesters and picnickers.
Indeed, similar police arrests and overzealous police behaviour were not apparent at The Black Lives Matter’s and Antifa protests, where your officers were seen on video and in the press openly holding off from making arrests and openly failing to act to warn ILLEGAL GATHERINGS of people about the need for social distancing. [Antifa is effectively now declared a terrorist organization by the US Government].
PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY SOME PROTESTS NOW ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
I respectfully request that you comment on this flagrant and publicly apparent double standard of your police officers as the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police and your officers’ total lack of protection for the public from what is effectively a declared terrorist organisation.
I also clearly video recorded PC Fox trying to intimidate and criminalise people who were clearly operating within the rules by having a picnic in the park: https://youtu.be/xjMwNPwj7aA
[If you cannot access the link due to your police firewall just Google ‘You Tube’ with the video title: ‘POLICE TRY TO CRIMINALISE FAMILY PICNICS’; the clip is in the public domain attracting >200 viewings – a further embarrassment to you and your force, but unfortunately a necessary one, in order to advertise our Government, you and your force’s flagrant injustices and breaches of our Human Rights.]
PC Fox was clearly insinuating to legal picnickers that they were a ‘gathering’, and by clear implication, were undertaking a ‘protest’. This erroneous police assertion was heavily refuted by the woman in my video who was clearly doing no such thing.
I respectfully request that you comment on this behaviour by PC Fox and that you bring disciplinary action against PC Fox for trying to criminalise behaviour which is clearly within the ‘rules’.
In summary, our requests are for you as the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police to:
Sincerely
Dr Kevin Corbett MSc PhD
Parliamentary & Police Liaison StandUpX
cc Piers Corbyn MSc ARCS
Biophysics & 5G Advisor StandUpX
POLICE RESPONSE TO COMPLAINT
02-Jun-2020 17:33PM
Dr. Corbett,
Many thanks for your email. You raise a number of points in your email – it is your view that picknickers were criminalised by the police officers who arrested them. The arrests were in relation to the breaching of the Regulations set by the government and will now be subject to the criminal justice system in the normal way. The overriding aim of this legislation is to protect health hence it is Human Rights compliant (Article 2 Right to Life) and has been judged to be so by the law makers.
I understand that officers have felt the need to speak to you about how they feel about the situation, but there are many routes for them to raise concerns and worries within the Met and appropriate support is in place for them to do so. That said, I recognise, as I did in previous correspondence, that you clearly care about our officers and the job they do, hence I remain grateful for that support.
In relation to the 4 points you raise, it is your opinion that some protests are more equal than others yet this is not an opinion we share. Protests are policed proportionately and within the bounds of the law – where offences take place they are prosecuted, as was the case with a number of people being arrested at various protests across the capital in recent weeks. With regards to your concerns about PC Fox, it would not be appropriate for me to comment at this point and would flag that you are entitled to make a complaint about their behaviour so that this can be reviewed. The route to do so in the first instance is via the link below:
https://www.met.police.uk/feedback/thanks-and-complaints/
Many thanks for taking the time to write in and share your experience from the protests over the weekend.
Kind regards,
XXXXXXXXXXX [name redacted]
Superintendent
Staff Officer to Commissioner Cressida Dick
New Scotland Yard, Victoria Embankment, London. SW1A 2JL