AP

Plods and kettles have their way

DESPITE the threats to destroy capitalism and hang the bankers, the real hero of London's G20 demonstrations on April 1st may turn out to be an American fund manager. The anonymous capitalist accidentally filmed a policeman assaulting Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper vendor who was making his way home through the protest. Mr Tomlinson was clubbed from behind with a baton and shoved to the ground as he walked away from a line of officers, hands in his pockets. He subsequently died of a heart attack.

Just as the shock of that footage was receding, another video nasty emerged. In it a woman at a vigil for Mr Tomlinson on the following day is slapped and baton-thwacked by a different officer. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is now investigating both cases. Given that most of the 5,000-odd protesters had cameras, more may well emerge.

It is especially dismal that the police should be so shamed in this of all weeks. On April 15th Britain marked the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, perhaps the deadliest ever police cock-up. Ninety-six Liverpool fans were crushed to death at a football match, after police allowed spectators to pour onto a crowded terrace. The episode led to sweeping reforms: these days, other countries' finest visit Britain for tips on football policing.

It is time those lessons were applied elsewhere at home: the expertise gleaned from football crowds deserts British coppers dealing with political ones. No one can sensibly claim that Britain's police are as brutal as many, probably most, other countries'. Some will argue that more dangerous security threats require more robust responses. Police tactics are nonetheless seriously flawed.

As at previous demos, the police at the G20 “kettled” or corralled thousands of mainly peaceful protesters (and not a few passers-by) into a central area that they were not allowed to leave for hours, without access to food, lavatories, insulin or anything else they pleaded for. Such detention without arrest (for such it effectively is) was quietly approved by the law lords in January, when they upheld a ruling that police had acted legally in detaining several thousand people in similar circumstances in 2001. As long as measures were proportionate, there was no breach of the right to liberty.

Whether the measures were sensible is another question: many mild-mannered G20 folk heated up after a few hours in the “kettle”. The police know perfectly well that the prospect of kettling puts people off exercising their right to peaceful protest. A review of crowd-control tactics ordered on April 15th should think hard about its use in future.

Other things too need attention. Bad apples of the sort now starring on YouTube are seldom brought to justice: no policeman has ever been convicted of murder or manslaughter for a death following police contact, though there have been more than 400 such deaths in the past ten years alone. The IPCC is at best overworked and at worst does not deserve the “I” in its name. And 20 years on, no one has yet been held responsible for the Hillsborough disaster.