Police were praised for their “proportionate” response to the march Senior police officers focused too much on the potential use of “kettling” during the TUC march against government spending cuts in London last month, human rights campaigners have said.
A review by 120 legal observers from Liberty said the containment tactic was “under near constant consideration” when potential trouble spots emerged.
They also found problems with police radios at the march, which was marred by violence by a breakaway group.
Scotland Yard welcomed the report.
The observers were provided by the human rights group Liberty at the request of the police and the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
Kettling is a police tactic in which protestors are contained in one area by a cordon of officers.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “The preoccupation with kettling and political pressure for knee-jerk public order powers continue to threaten the right to peaceful dissent in the oldest unbroken democracy.”
“The question seemed to be more ‘when’ than ‘if’”
Liberty report
Liberty’s report and the observers’ role was restricted to the policing of the official TUC “March for the Alternative” event, on 26 March, and did not cover the policing of the violent disturbances by the splinter group.
It comes after the Metropolitan Police said it would appeal against last week’s High Court ruling that kettling tactics used against demonstrators during G20 protests in London in 2009 were unlawful.
The legal observers praised police for their “restrained and proportionate” response to the TUC march.
But they said containment, or kettling, was under “near constant” consideration.
At various times the police control room approved its use only to withdraw authorisation because of practical problems, it said.
The report said containment was now widely anticipated by people at demonstrations, who moved away whenever they saw a cordon of officers.
Officers “used a feigned, or threatened, containment to their advantage at times (for example to disperse a group)”, the report said.
It concluded the tactic was undermining trust in the police.
The report said: “It was clear from our observation of senior officers that containment was a tactic under near constant consideration as soon as it became apparent that a breakaway group were committing damage to property and behaving violently towards police.”
“The question seemed to be more ‘when’ than ‘if’.”
It added that the focus on kettling “does appear seriously to undermine the relationship of trust and confidence between peaceful protesters and the police”.
The report on the event – attended by more than 250,000 people – also said some officers had to use mobile phones because their police radios failed to work properly, hampering their ability to deal with breakaway groups.
Communication problems arose between the special operations room, bronze commanders and police officers on the ground, with officers having to resort to using mobile phones because radios were not working, which “often led to confusion”, Liberty said.
Violence broke out on the same day as the TUC’s anti-cuts march, which passed off peacefully Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens said: “We were faced with the difficult task of striking the right balance between ensuring the vast majority of people were able to peacefully protest whilst managing the small number of criminals intent on disorder.
“We had officers along the whole route who could move in quickly, as the report recognises we did, to manage local break-outs of disorder.
“In what was a significant and challenging policing operation we welcome Liberty’s overall conclusion that the policing was proportionate.”
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