Cops and hijackers

Sonia Gable | Thursday, 24 January 2008 Source: Searchlight

Richard Barnbrook, the BNP candidate for mayor of London, must have jumped at the chance to walk at the front of the 22,500-strong police demonstration over pay in London on 23 January.

Jan Berry, chair of the Police Federation, told a journalist that they had invited all the mayoral candidates to attend although Metin Enver, a spokesman for the Federation, told the London Evening Standard that they had not invited Barnbrook.

Police and prison officers are not allowed to be members of the BNP so it was inappropriate for Barnbrook to be invited in the first place and allowed to march when he turned up, complete with his councillor’s badge on his chest to make him feel important.

Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, did object to Barnbrook’s presence. A former senior Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, Paddick said: “I felt very uncomfortable that there was someone from the BNP. I was aware of him being there and I pointed it out to Federation officials but there was nothing more that I could do. I was very uncomfortable that he was anywhere near me.”

Barnbrook came with a BNP television crew in tow to maximise the opportunity to hijack the police pay dispute to boost his mayoral campaign and interviewed Roy Scanes, secretary of the sergeants’ committee of the Essex Police Federation. It begs the question whether Sgt Scanes knew to whom he was speaking.

You can read the Evening Standard’s report of Barnbrook’s participation in the march here