Riots cost taxpayer at least £133m, MPs told

Bill for policing and compensation for businesses hit by violence emerges as home affairs select committee investigates riots The riots in England will cost the taxpayer more than £133m in policing and compensation for businesses hit by the violence, the home affairs select committee has been told. In evidence from Boris Johnson, the London mayor, the acting Metropolitan police commissioner, Tim Godwin, and Sir Hugh Orde, the chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers, the scale and cost of the August rioting has begun to emerge. To date 100 individuals have applied for compensation to the Metropolitan Police Authority under the Riot Damages Act, totalling £9.3m in claims, a figure that is likely to increase. In addition, the policing costs for the Metropolitan force for mutual aid, overtime and staffing are £74m for the four days of disorder, Godwin told the committee, which was taking its first evidence session on the English riots. Orde in his evidence said the final amount for police forces across the country had not yet been finalised but so far the estimated cost of the riots for forces outside London was £50m – which was spent on mutual aid to provide support as the disorder spread on an unprecedented scale. Triggered by the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, north London, the riots are now the subject of several inquiries, including internal assessments at the Met. The costs include the bill for the ongoing police investigation, which has resulted in nearly 2,000 arrests. Assistant commissioner Lynne Owens told the committee that 500 officers were working on the inquiry and there was still 20,000 hours of CCTV footage to view. The committee was told that Owens is evaluating the local management response to the events in the immediate aftermath of Duggan’s death, particularly the events outside the police station on Saturday night when the dead man’s family gathered in the hope of speaking to a senior officer. They had already been left to find out about his death from a national news report rather than hearing of it from the police. Godwin told the committee the Met had apologised to the family for the failure to inform them about Duggan’s death, and the Owens review would investigate these and other issues further. But Godwin said there were issues about the relationship between the Metropolitan police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) that needed to be examined – referring to an apparent blurring of roles as to who has the duty to inform a family in a police fatal shooting. But in written evidence to the committee, the IPCC said it was “never the responsibility of the IPCC” to inform the next of kin of a death of a relation. Deborah Glass, deputy commissioner for the IPCC, told the committee the watchdog was considering a separate investigation into why the Duggan family only heard about the death of their son when the news was broadcast on national television. But a decision on that had yet to be finalised. Glass was pressed as to whether her investigators had interviewed the CO19 officers involved in the fatal shooting. After refusing to give a clear answer she was reprimanded by the chairman, Keith Vaz. Glass would only say that her investigators now had “accounts” from the officers about the events of the shooting. She told the committee it would take four to six months before the IPCC inquiry into the death was completed. UK riots Police Metropolitan police Crime London Sandra Laville guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 6, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.