Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton

by Graham Bartlett

  This show of strength marked the beginning of the end of a day that, as well as the attempt to invade the police station, saw shops overrun, Brighton Town Hall put under siege and a Brighton University building occupied. However, due to the effective preventive policing, just five people were arrested. More would follow, but we never let the disorder get to the point that we needed to lock up dozens of thugs as that would have tied up an equivalent number of valuable cops.

  Some officers faced the anger and missiles of a minority of violent protestors for over twelve hours, and all showed remarkable resilience and restraint. There are distinct parallels between Grace’s fictional world of crime investigation and its factual counterpart across all areas of policing. In Dead Man’s Time, the hours and commitment he is expected to give to the job cause him to reflect carefully, like I did, on how he will rise to the challenge of fatherhood. Each of the officers I had deployed had families and friends who would be wondering when they would next see them and would be desperately worried for them during the conflict. Few received the accolades they deserved.

  In the days that followed, the armchair critics surfaced providing their ill-informed opinions that we had been either too harsh or too soft. Some even asserted that it was our, not their parents’, responsibility to scoop up the kids and take them home for their safety.

  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

  This was just one of a succession of protests and marches. The opening of a factory in Moulsecoomb that manufactured components for fighter planes provided plenty more.

  Activists frequently besieged the EDO MBM factory, often supergluing themselves to the railings in an effort to stop production. Occasionally the protests became more intense, characterized by violent attacks on police and wholesale disruption to the city.

  Some would seek out secondary targets, such as multinational businesses, to attack. Forgetting that innocent local people worked for these firms or shopped, ate or banked in them, they would terrify anyone in their quest to overthrow the distant oligarchs who ran them.

  In one particularly sickening episode dozens of children were trapped in McDonald’s by a baying mob, protected only by a thin line of brave young officers denying the thugs access. The attempt to overturn a parked police van outside just added to the intensely frightening ordeal.

  Early in my tenure as Divisional Commander, protestors had managed to break into the factory and cause thousands of pounds of damage. A Hove jury unexpectedly acquitted those responsible. Their defence was that their actions were justified given that they ’had an honestly held belief’ that they were preventing war crimes.

  The private view of some supporters of direct action was that the acquittal should have prompted the protest group to take the moral high ground and become more measured in their future activity. It was no secret that business owners, residents and some politicians were fed up with the seemingly endless rounds of protests, blockades and marches. For a city that thrives on tourists, it was not good for trade.

  Others, however, had different ideas.

  In late 2010 a huge protest was advertised, aimed at noisily expressing ‘universal’ disapproval of EDO MBM. On the face of it, this is exactly what the police were there to facilitate. The right to peacefully protest is the bedrock of any healthy democracy and, despite what some detractors may say, our job was to allow that to happen.

  We never simply dusted off previous plans when preparing for a big event such as this. No two protests are ever the same and to use a previous strategy and tactics would smack of complacency. We would of course learn the lessons from before but I always insisted that, despite the huge extra effort involved, every deployment be looked at from scratch.

  In Not Dead Yet my dual role as Divisional Commander and Gold is expertly narrated. Peter James deliberately puts me – or rather my alter-ego Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington – at the centre of running fast-moving critical incidents while still taking care of the rest of the city’s policing. This was very much as it was, and intentionally so. I worried that to parachute in a strategic commander for a specific public order event, where that person may have no other stake in the city’s interests, would risk a disjointed policing style and cause someone else – me – to pick up the pieces if it all went wrong.

  As Gold commander, given previous attempts to attack EDO MBM, I instructed we seek the Chief Constable’s authority to establish a designated protest zone at the end of Home Farm Road leading to the factory. This was right next to one of the main roads into and out of the city and perfect for the purpose of a visible and vibrant protest.

  Word got to us, however, that some hard-core anarchists intended to disrupt our plans. We discovered that a squat had been established in Ivy House, an old cottage nestled in the woods at the back of nearby Wild Park. Dozens of protestors were to spend the night there dossing down, enabling them to give us an early-morning surprise by approaching the factory from the rear.

  Of course, we had a plan for that. As the protestors awoke that damp autumnal morning they were met with a ring of police officers encircling their temporary home. Leading this squad was Chief Inspector Jane Derrick. No accident that, once again, such a capable and charismatic leader would be the one chosen to set the policing tone for the day.

  As the squatters emerged into the misty dawn chill, each was wearing a full-faced black balaclava – not indicative of people just wanting to make a legitimate political point, in my experience. Prepared for such an eventuality, Jane was authorized to order them to remove the offending masks.

  This created the first stand-off of the day. Compliance in their minds would indicate capitulation. Defiance would mean certain arrest. It was likely that some planned to be arrested during the course of the day but not this early, in an isolated wood miles from the public gaze. The only cameras to play up to here were those held by the police evidence gatherers and the one fixed to the police helicopter hovering over their heads.

  The Silver commander, Chief Inspector Nev Kemp, and I were in the command suite nervously watching the soundless CCTV pictures being beamed from our eye in the sky. Our bacon rolls going cold, we were transfixed by this stalemate. We could not afford to fail this first test.

  I could make out Jane having an animated conversation with the group’s self-designated spokesman. Her body language suggested that she was using her charm, her impeccable reasoning and her indefatigable patience to get her point across – ‘You are going nowhere with those masks on.’

  Numerically, we could have just swept them up and bussed them off to custody but that was not in my plan. We had to negotiate agreement and demonstrate our reasonableness. We would nick them only as a last resort but if we did, we knew it would tie up manpower that would cause us heaps of problems later in the day.

  The stand-off lasted for ages. Nev, who is famed for his infectious enthusiasm, yelled, ‘Just take them off and we will let you go.’

  I grinned. The fact that they were still talking was a positive sign.

  I detected a change in Jane’s posture and tried to interpret what it meant.

  The stalemate seemed to be coming to an end, but in whose favour? Had they crossed a line? Were we going in hard? Had they listened? Had we won the first round?

  The spokesman appeared to turn to his followers. The line of officers took a step back. This looked good.

  The evidence gatherers’ cameras were pointed into the undergrowth and the helicopter climbed a few hundred feet – obviously part of the negotiation: no cameras.

  We could no longer see what was going on but Jane’s radio message said it all: ‘All the masks are off and we are escorting them to the protest area.’

  ‘Yes, get in there,’ cried Nev.

  ‘Calm down, mate,’ I said ‘It’s going to be a long day. You’ll give me a headache if you whoop every time something goes well.’ Inside, however, I too was punching the air.

  Despite this first victory, we knew that the rest o
f the day was unlikely to pass as peacefully.

  Different cameras at the protest area showed that as time went by the crowd swelled. They were becoming increasingly rowdy and were taxing the resolve of the officers charged with keeping them there. It became clear that they were not going to be satisfied with staying in the pen we had provided for very long. Despite us supplying water and toilets, they wanted to get to the factory or at least test us trying to stop them.

  The growing tension was relayed to Nev in the Silver Suite. The recent acquittals had changed much about our policing. We had to be even more careful that none of our officers said or did anything that would suggest we didn’t, honestly, welcome and support peaceful protest.

  The ground commanders had it all covered while Nev and I got our heads together to run through the contingencies. What if they got to the factory? What if they attacked a member of the public? What if a member of the public attacked them? All these possibilities needed a plan before they had a chance to happen.

  Suddenly a call came from the Silver Suite.

  ‘Boss, you are needed. They have burst out of the protest area. They are running amok.’

  We dashed back in and saw a mob bolting and rampaging in all directions. Most were making for the woods that skirted the back of the factory, some were trying to head up the road towards the main gate, others were attempting to engage officers to prevent them giving chase.

  We knew our inner cordon at the factory should hold but the last thing we wanted was a pitched battle in the rugged copse that bordered not only EDO MBM but also a railway line. We had earlier found paint bombs and baseball bats secreted in the woods, so knew that was part of the protestors’ plan.

  Nev rattled off a list of instructions: reinforcing vulnerable points, mobilizing units on standby, shifting officers from A to B. The radio operators faithfully repeated his orders through short sharp commands, all swiftly acknowledged and obeyed.

  One of the UK’s most respected public order commanders, Superintendent Ian Davies, was the Bronze in charge of the security of the factory. He knew that his own reputation depended on him and his officers holding their ground.

  We couldn’t see everything on our CCTV screens, but the radio traffic indicated a frenzied effort by the protestors to breach the police fortifications, get through the woods and storm the factory.

  It was so frustrating not being out there. Some say that people like me get promoted to avoid the front line – not a bit of it. I would have loved to be on the ground. It’s what we all join for. Grace often dabbles in tasks that really belong to the lower ranks purely on the basis that he still loves the job he signed up to. It’s why Ian Davies always flatly refused any indoor job on many of these deployments.

  After about twenty minutes of running at protestors to disperse them, Ian’s units achieved their aim and the would-be invaders scattered out of the woods onto the surrounding streets.

  Unfortunately for the local communities, they spilled out not only right in the middle of the main Brighton to Lewes road, but also outside a junior school whose children had just come out to play.

  It was terrifying. Teachers had to frantically grab the pupils and take them back inside to safety as the crazed mob rampaged around the area. Thugs were running in and out of traffic, jumping on cars, petrifying the occupants who were unable to escape due to the rabble surrounding them.

  Our phones lit up. The public and press were demanding action. Twitter went wild with worried parents and residents desperate for us to do something. As Grace knows, especially when matters are moving fast, such as in the race to catch Bryce Laurent in Want You Dead, you have to feed the media, especially social media. Ignore that basic principle and you risk the vacuum being filled by those hell-bent on promoting misinformation and disaffection. We had to do something, and be seen to do something.

  ‘Graham. I want to nick them all,’ announced Nev.

  ‘Right. How are you going to do that and what are your grounds? How are you going to make sure you don’t sweep up the innocent with the guilty?’

  He laid his thinking out for me. The carnage and fear this minority were causing was simply not acceptable. The public were, rightly, demanding action. We had the grounds to arrest the most disruptive group to prevent a breach of the peace. We had the officers to do it and, with Jane and Ian, we couldn’t have asked for two better commanders to make it happen.

  We briskly went through the detail and, satisfied that it was justified, necessary, proportionate and achievable, I gave Nev the green light.

  I heard him bark his instructions to the radio operators and in no time at all we witnessed a fabulously choreographed manoeuvre play out on our bank of CCTV screens.

  Ian and Jane’s officers had managed to gracefully encircle the hard core of violent protestors. The mere presence of so many officers containing them in the middle of the normally bustling main road sucked the wind right out of their sails. Like naughty school children, and doubtlessly responding to some commands that we could not hear, we saw them all sit down on the tarmac.

  Soon the message confirmed what we wanted to hear.

  ‘Forty-three in custody to prevent a breach of the peace.’

  Despite the logistical nightmare this caused, it had just the effect we were aiming for. It isolated the troublemakers from the peaceful protestors. To others it showed that we would put up with disruption only to a point and that to intimidate, harass or try to break into private premises was not going to be tolerated. Those not arrested drifted away, worried they might be next.

  This was a defining moment in the policing of protests at Brighton. I knew we could ill afford to continue with a style that set protestors against police. The cost and impact on the community of deploying hundreds of cops to manage what should be a peaceful and lawful activity was unsustainable.

  Having heard him speak at a conference, I asked Europe’s leading crowd psychologist, Professor Clifford Stott, now of Keele University, to come down and help us adopt his theory of facilitated dialogue to improve how we dealt with protestors.

  Essentially this was about establishing meaningful communication with protest groups before and during events, encouraging a genuine openness about their aims and our requirements. I commissioned training for a dozen Police Liaison Officers who would undertake this essential role during each protest. I also set up a small team to work permanently on developing long-term relationships with activists. It was stunningly successful. In a matter of months we practically eliminated all forms of disorder during the dozen or so protests we policed, just by talking, listening and understanding.

  Even at the next EDO MBM demonstration, a full twenty months since we had arrested those forty-three, although it was characterized by animosity and antagonism, we experienced no disorder, no arrests, no damage and no injuries.

  I managed to use this evidence to persuade Chief Officers and the Police Authority that this new method should be the default style for all public order policing in Sussex. It has grown and thrived since and, through like-minded officers in this and many other forces, is now in place across the UK.

  I’d like to think that I have left a number of important legacies since retiring from the police. This mature approach to protest and the more humane drugs strategy are the two I am most proud of. Both required me to think differently and – with a degree of bloody-mindedness – to persevere in getting others to think likewise. Both, I firmly believe, left Brighton and Hove in a better state when I hung up my handcuffs than it was when I had started my wonderful journey, thirty years earlier.

  I know that those who follow me will have the same passion and drive to make the city even safer. It gets to you that way.

  EPILOGUE

  I had said farewell to my last visitor as I checked my watch: 6 p.m., Friday, 1 March 2013. The time that I had been both dreading and working towards since I was eighteen had arrived.

  I gently closed the door and took a deep breath. I turned and abso
rbed the sights that had been my backdrop for the last four years. The office was suddenly less a place to work, more a symbol of where I had come to and what I had achieved.

  I reached to my left shoulder and, with a heavy heart, slowly unbuttoned one of the epaulettes that I wore with such pride. The Chief Superintendent insignia it bore represented the fulfilment I felt. How typical that it came off far easier now than when I first struggled to fix my shoulder badges on three decades ago. Taking the right one off I placed both on what, for just a few more minutes, was my desk.

  Policing had defined me for all of my adult life. I waited in vain for the lump in my throat to swell and the tears to flow. This was supposed to be emotional. In their place, however, was just an overwhelming sense of pride and of a mission accomplished.

  Peter James’ good friend Pat Lanigan, a detective in the New York Police Department, once said that being a cop was like having ‘a lifetime ticket for a front-row seat to the best show on earth’. I could not have put it better myself. I had seen the best and worst of human nature. I had been there for people at their lowest moments and hopefully made a difference. How could I feel tearful at all that I had experienced?

  I loved every minute of my career but have now moved on. As well as writing and helping Peter with his books, I use the skills and experiences from my extraordinary vocation in other ways, supporting people, organizations and partnerships to go on protecting the good from the bad.

  Julie and I can now enjoy some wonderful time together. I have been around far more for Conall, Niamh and Deaglan during the precious years as they enter adulthood. You can’t have that part of family life back, so to be there before the children fly the nest has been phenomenal and immensely important.

  I was very fortunate to have served with so many fantastically dedicated people and during such a period of change. So much of the technology we take for granted, DNA, the internet, CCTV and mobile telephones were confined to science fiction movies when I started. Conversely, the challenges policing now face through the explosion of drugs, cybercrime and international criminality underpinned by swingeing budget cuts, lower public satisfaction and a twenty-four-hour news media, which seeks to blame first and listen later, all make the job far harder.