According to David Mery, who attended this morning's meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority, in order to ask his Question, as a member ot the public, about being falsely arrested and having his home searched, DNA and fingerprints and computer equipment taken etc. in the wake of last July's terrorist attacks, an interesting nuggets of information was revealed about the scale and cost of the Metropolitan Police operation to remove Brian Haw's banners and posters from Parliament Square on Tuesday 23rd May 2006.
"it took 78 officers – more than has been reported so far by the press – six hours at a cost of £7,500 to seize Brian Haw's placards;"
Presumably this emerged in response to a question by Jenny Jones, the Green Party Greater London Assembly member of the Metropolitan Police Authority.
It is inconceivable that there could not have been some real criminals that most of those 78 Police Officers, could and should have been dealing with instead.
UPDATE: according to the Daily Mail. the monetary figure is "only" £7,200
It emerged today that 78 officers had been involved and the operation had cost £7,200 - £3,000 on overtime and another £4,200 on transport, catering and the erection of road signs.[...]
Commander Chris Allison, who was in charge of the operation, said not all of the 78 officers had been deployed - 24 were kept in reserve, while some of the others were evidence-gathering teams who were filming proceedings.
Only eight officers had approached Mr Haw in the first instance, he said.
Mr Haw is due to appear at Bow Street Magistrates' Court on May 30 to answer charges of breaching his conditions to demonstrate in the square.
UPDADTE 2:
The Sunday Telegraph has a story which claims that Sir Ian Blair misled the Metropolitan Police Authority meeting about this cost, which is apparently, a staggering £27,754 !
Sir Ian told the Metropolitan Police Authority on Thursday that the cost of removing a peace camp from Parliament Square, which involved 78 officers, was £7,200.The following day, the issue was discussed by the Met's management board. Within hours, details of the meeting were passed to a journalist, who contacted Scotland Yard for a comment. That afternoon, Sir Ian admitted that he had misled the authority, as the true cost of dismantling the anti-war protester Brian Haw's placards, including officers' pay, was £27,754
What on earth did they waste all this public money for ?
Londoners should demand an explanation from the Metropolitan Police Service, via a complaint to their local member of the Metropolitan Police Authority about this misleading reporting, and the utter waste of public money.
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