Riots police ‘used phones after communications system failed’

The Police Federation review revealed that the failings of the digital Airwave radio network used by the Metropolitan Police was one of the reasons why the capital’s officers were “always approximately half-an-hour behind the rioters”, it was reported.

This is partly why officers kept arriving at areas from where the disorder had moved on, the document, which was leaked to a Sunday newspaper, said.

It adds: “Officers on the ground and in command resorted, in the majority, to the use of mobile phones to co-ordinate a response.”

The company responsible for the Airwave radio system now used by police has insisted the network was not overloaded during the troubles in London, however.

The internal review also reveals that after the trouble erupted, “forces often did not know how may officers they had on or off shift” and senior officers took charge in some places “often without the local knowledge of the areas”, making it easier to be outmanoeuvred by rioters.

It also concluded that severe equipment shortages among officers meant they were unable to be mobilised in a public order capacity.

“Mutual aid officers were often dispatched without enough equipment.

“They therefore could not be mobilised in a public order capacity as all the riot gear was in use,” found the investigation, compiled by the federation’s operational policing sub-committee.

Scotland Yard last week released an interim report into the riots which found there were not enough officers to deal with the unprecedented scale and spread of the disorder.

Chiefs also said intelligence gathering “could not cope with the scale and speed of the spread of disorder”.

A spokesman for Airwave yesterday said the suggestion the network was overloaded, causing “significant communications failure”, was “entirely inaccurate”.

“Despite the unprecedented levels of police officers and other emergency service users accessing the network, we are proud that it operated exactly as it is designed to, providing an extremely high level of service to officers from 26 different police forces and the ambulance and fire services,” the spokesman said.

“Throughout the period of the riots, our enhanced monitoring of the network and continuous communication with the user community enabled us to provide an optimal service to those working on the front line.

“We worked closely with the emergency services after the event to review all parties’ handling of the situation and were encouraged that our performance was widely praised.

“Naturally we are disappointed that the Police Federation did not think it appropriate to talk to Airwave or other police bodies responsible for communications prior to compiling their report.”

In a statement given shortly after the riots, Nick Gargan, chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency, said: “The network itself coped very well with the increased usage and capacity issues of moving vast numbers of police officers to disorder locations.

“In the London area, the average number of police officers on duty in a night was about 2,000 and the network was able to cope with a total of 16,000 officers, many of whom came from other forces thus showing the true interoperability capabilities of the Airwave service.

“We believe this was a great example of partnership working between the police service and Airwave in very trying circumstances.”

Officers from Yorkshire were among those who were sent to London to help cope with the riots and they stayed on afterwards to help with policing the capital at a time when there were concerns that further trouble might erupt in the weeks after the worst of the violence.

Many offenders have been identified and brought to justice since the riots ended.