Metropolitan Police Trafalgar Square debriefing report
01 May 1991
The Metropolitan Police have published a report on the anti-poll tax demonstration that ended in violent street battles between police and protesters on 31 March 1990. The report by Deputy Chief Commissioner John Metcalf acknowledges that the police lost control of the situation. It catalogues a succession of mistakes and technical problems such as communication and command failures as well as a lack of coordination between the various police units. Metcalf writes:
officers working under different lines of command were often unaware of tactics used by other officers on different units. These difficulties were exacerbated by inadequate communications systems as attempts were made to coordinate police movements.
Tactical errors inflamed the situation early on as Metcalf admits when he notes that "The arrival of mounted police in Whitehall near Downing Street coincided with the demonstrators becoming increasingly hostile towards police." The volatile effect of the arrival of mounted police is documented in several eye witness reports from demonstrators printed in
Poll tax riot:10 hours that shook Trafalgar Square.
If the police began to lose control at Whitehall the scene at Trafalgar Square was little better. On three separate occasions police vans were driven at speed through the crowd and were attacked by protesters who claimed that they caused injuries; a claim that the report denies. The eventual dispersal of thousands of demonstrators into the West End where extensive looting took place receives minimal explanation although by this point the police acknowledge that they had little idea of what was going on as:
the Control room was swamped with hundreds of messages from the Central Control Complex at New Scotland Yard and from surrounding stations. The system became severely overloaded and computer response time was delayed by over five minutes.
In his conclusion Metcalf argues for "more use of existing preventative legislation." A further tightening of venues for assemblies and rallies and routes of marches only recently made more stringent under the Public Order Act is called for. Metcalf also ominously suggests that: Perhaps society should consider whether where there are already many alternative means of influencing public opinion it wishes to allow marches with a potential for violence and disorder to take place in the heart of the capital.
Metropolitan Police, Trafalgar Square Riot Debriefing, March 1991; Poll Tax Riot: 10 hours that shook Trafalgar Square, Acab Press, 1990.