A former director of Policing in Ken Livingstone’s Office, Lee Jasper has described the decision by the Metropolitan Police to send 20,000 policemen to this year’s Notting Hill carnival as “absolute disaster” and a signal for danger likely to lead to police oppression, “I think it is a danger signal 13,000 was a trigger the last time, the lower the policing figures the safer the carnival.” he said

He maintained the event will turn out as a “police carnival” where the place will become saturated with police and likely to render it a “catalyst” event. “In previous years where I have been involved in carnivals,13,000 has been the highest number and that resulted in 86 injuries as it was very oppressive and people felt hemmed in “ he said

Lee Jasper noted “police officers were brought in from the ends of the country where they are not used to black people, they are not used to carnivals, they did not like to police the carnival, they resented it and took it up on the people, I believe this year that is what the Notting Hill carnival will be”

He was speaking on People’s Parliament, a current affairs programme by Voice of Africa Radio in reaction to a story in Monday’s Metro Newspaper which said the Metropolitan police planned to dispatch 20000 officers to police this year’s Notting Hill carnival. Rather he said, Notting Hill carnival organisers should be given between £200,000 and £300,000 to hire stewards that will keep the peace of the carnival.

Jasper accused Mayor Boris Johnson for cutting down on funding for stewarding and increasing police figures yearly “Boris Johnson and Westminster city council have reduced the yearly funding for stewards, carnivals do not have enough money to fund a 100 stewards not to talk about a 1000 which were hired under Ken Livingstone, but police figures have gone up form 9,000 which was saving the tax payer money and reducing hostility in the carnival area to 20,000”

 Lee Jasper added barriers and sterile zones have become real crowd pressure points in that they do not allow the crowd to disperse, contributing to severe crowd congestions ,”people go into these areas and tell police officers I’d like to go here or there but they say no these are real flash point areas.”

 He urged Chris Boothman, Organiser of the event “to demand that policing is not oppressive and that majority of police officers are warehoused somewhere, away from the vast majority of revellers”.

He requested that only London and Notting Hill police who know the area, and understand the people are allowed to police instead of 20000 of officers coming from Newcastle or Durham where “diversity is not well on the spot” he said.

Source: Voice of Africa Radio