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Senior police and home secretary acknowledge that gangs in London’s East End may use Games as crime opportunity Senior Scotland Yard officers believe that gangs in London may seek to disrupt the Olympics. Theresa May, the home affairs secretary acknowledged there was a possibility that gangs prevalent in the London’s East End will use the Olympics as an opportunity for criminality. She said the team preparing the Olympics policing were now looking again to see what they could learn from the riots. A former police officer made the claim in private evidence to the home affairs select committee. The anonymous officer recently involved in Operation Trident, the Metropolitan police operation against black gun crime, has also disclosed he believed senior gang members known to the police have avoided arrest leaving younger opportunists to carry the can. May has portrayed the bulk of the rioting as the product of sheer criminality, but suggested ony 25% were juveniles, a lower figure than others have suggested. She also appeared to put a question mark over suggestions that as many as 75% of those that have been arrested will prove to have previous convictions, saying the numbers will shift, and prove to be different from area to area. “I’m absolutely clear that what underlay it was criminality”, she said. She conceded that it had been senior police officers who had decided to increase police numbers on the streets before a Cobra meeting on the Tuesday morning, and that she had not been instrumental in such a policy taken by the Metropolitan police management team on the Monday night. At one stage she gave the impression she was directing police operations, a suggestion the police deeply resented. But she revealed that on a conference call on Wednesday morning she did urge chief constables nationwide to follow the lead of the Metropolitan police to cancel all leave and to ask special constables to be put on standby. “I made it absolutely clear to chiefs up and down the country to follow the example of the Met.” Her criticism of police tactics was largely coded, saying: “The police were confronted by a situation that was unprecedented and activity was springing up far more quickly than they had seen before, and they were having to find ways to cope with that. They were trying to put in place what they believed that from their experience was policing that worked, but in the event on the Monday night it did not, they and they had to increase those numbers on the Tuesday. She also admitted that many people felt “those who were on the streets seemed to be in control of parts of the streets”. May said that investigating the involvement of gangs was likely to be completed by the end of October, but added that the level of gang involvement “possibly is not as high as the government first thought”. On current evidence it would seem that the majority of people involved were not individuals who have been involved in gangs, although obviously a number of people involved were involved in gangs. “But there is some evidence that obviously there was some gang activity taking place in terms of encouraging people to take part in these events and as we saw, some of that encouragement was being propagated on social media.” Asked if the riots were prompted by the shooting of Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham, north London, on 4 August May said: “I would be very cautious in saying that the shooting had the sort of direct link that we’re talking about.” Some people “chose to go out on the streets and damage buildings and cause disorder,” she said. “What initiated that is something that none of us can wholeheartedly say we know.” She also revealed she believed the number of riot-trained police has to be increased. Currently it is voluntary for police to undertake riot training. It also became clear that the issue of the funding of the cost of the riots has yet to be resolved with the Home Office likely to challenge the costs tabled by various police authorities. May also said she was still looking at the idea of extending curfew powers, but seemed to back off the idea of closing down all social media during riots, arguing it as much a good way for the police to disseminate information. May said an inquiry was underway as to why Duggan’s partner was told by the police to wait outside the Tottenham police station as she sought to find out what had happened to him. She has reportedly claimed she waited outside for four hours. Local police in Tottenham were frustrated that they were not asked to police the demonstration that followed Earlier, shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said that blaming a “feral underclass” was lazy and absolved those involved of responsibility for their actions. He said government cuts were undermining efforts to deal with young criminals – as gang intervention projects were reducing their services or being closed down – which was in turn restricting sentencing options open to judges where community punishments might be more suitable. He said he wanted the courts to have an explicit duty to consider making an order for young criminals to participate in a restorative justice course. Theresa May UK riots Crime London Police Metropolitan police Olympic Games 2012 Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk