LONDON: A police review has found that the arrests of four journalists at the Just Stop Oil climate protests in London were ordered by senior officers.
The Nov. 9 arrests of LBC correspondent Charlotte Lynch, photojournalist Tom Bowles, filmmaker Rich Felgate, and one more unnamed journalist were, according to the review, “not an overreaction or a mistake by police officers on the ground,” The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Instead, they were ordered by senior Hertfordshire police officers, who had not considered that journalists may be at the protests, resulting in police powers not being used appropriately.
“The bronze (policing) plan almost exclusively endorsed arrest as the only intervention available to officers,” the review team said, criticizing the approach for failing to distinguish between people and consider the balance of rights.
“There is evidence to suggest the potential for the arrests to amount to an ‘unlawful interference’ with the individuals’ freedom of expression under article 10 (of the European Convention on Human Rights),” the team added.
The review was carried out by the chief superintendent of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, Jon Hutchinson, at the request of Hertfordshire Constabulary after accusations that the arrests posed a threat to press freedoms.
Two weeks prior to the review, a spokesperson for the UK prime minister expressed in Parliament unease at the arrests of journalists as supporters of Just Stop Oil climbed gantries over the M25 motorway.
Hertfordshire police arrested the four journalists — despite them showing officers valid press identification cards — on suspicion of conspiring to cause a public nuisance in relation to the Just Stop Oil protests.
The review pointed out that officers on the ground could not exercise their powers of arrest simply at the orders of a senior officer unless the latter conveyed, “sufficient information in order for the arresting officer to develop reasonable grounds.”
According to the review’s evidence, the officers who carried out the arrests did not develop sufficient grounds prior to exercising their power.
The review team said: “Having reviewed the evidence and the information available to the officers at the time, there seems to be a disconnect as to how they arrived at the outcome they did.
“The interactions of officers suggest that arrest was the likely outcome regardless of the information obtained.
“It was believed that officers had a lack of understanding as to the role of the media and how they operate,” the review added, highlighting that this had been despite the widespread coverage of the Just Stop Oil demonstrations.
Moreover, the review found that the climate protests, which took place on the London Orbital Motorway (M25), “spanned at least four other police forces, none of whom arrested members of the press.”
