Future matches between the two clubs have remained hate-filled and characterized by tribal stupidity, but it seems the fans burned themselves out that day and the levels of disorder we saw then have not been repeated since.
Much of the credit for that goes to Darren Balkham and his counterparts in London. They worked tirelessly behind the scenes to demonstrate to the fans that their lawless behaviour would not be tolerated and, to a degree, the fans have listened. Time will tell if that remains the case.
18: Battle of Rights
It doesn’t take much to trigger a riot. A determined crowd with a subversive element mixed with aggressive policing is an almost guaranteed recipe for disorder.
In some cases, such as the UK riots of 2011 where towns and cities across the country burned and shops and warehouses were looted by rampaging mobs, the police can be caught off-guard by a mob so intent on creating mayhem and so huge in number that, despite everything, they become overwhelmed and the trouble spreads like a plague. In others, anarchy can be sparked by the two sides, police and protestors, refusing or not knowing how to communicate across the divide.
There are dozens of theories why Brighton is one of the most politically active cities in the UK. Some say it’s the two universities, others its proximity to London. But whatever it is, as a cop balancing people’s rights to protest while preventing looting, arson and chaos is one of the biggest challenges of policing this unique place.
Being a detective, like Roy Grace, for most of my service, I spent much of the 1990s observing the pitched battles between groups such as Reclaim the Streets and the police from a distance. Occasionally picking up an investigation into a group of protestors who had been arrested for violent disorder was about as close as I came to the action. I had actually trained as a public order officer early on, but that came slightly too late for the 1984 miners’ strike and my move to CID robbed me of the chance to police the live animal export protests at Shoreham Harbour, ten years later.
However, you make your choices in life and for me the day-to-day buzz I felt catching some seriously bad people eclipsed the occasional adrenaline rush of standing on a riot line. Little did I know that in the twilight of my career I would command hundreds of officers keeping the peace at anti-war protests, student demos and major football matches.
I knew when I was promoted to Superintendent at Brighton some retraining would become necessary. Every year, Sussex — second only to London — would typically have over thirty large protest events, the vast majority being on my patch. Someone needed to take command of those and now, in my shiny new uniform, much of it fell to me.
I was up for it. It was like a rebirth; something new to immerse myself in. The thrill of planning and running a major public order incident is about as good as it gets for senior officers. The ambiguity of intelligence, limited resources, the eyes of the public firmly upon you; it is decision-making at its most critical.
Even now, I miss sitting in my office on a Saturday afternoon, advisors around me, overseeing an unfolding protest that, despite all the preparation, was teetering precariously between rowdy and riot. I loved being forced to make knife-edge choices based on every ounce of my training, experience and the trust in those around me. I knew whatever I ordered, however, would result in backlash from one quarter or another.
Too much force and the protestors and certain politicians would cry foul, too little and business owners, other politicians and residents would accuse me of running scared. The rights of the protestors inevitably conflicted with the rights of everyone else; I had to walk a thread-like tightrope.
These dilemmas were against the backdrop of the widespread criticism the Metropolitan Police experienced following the 2009 G20 protests. Some sections of the press had unhelpfully induced the public to think that public order policing was rooted in a philosophy of stifling free speech.
That is not to say there were not some dreadful things that happened in London over those few days; the death of bystander Ian Tomlinson being the worst. However, most officers aren’t looking for a fight — they just want to keep the peace and their mind, body and job intact.
There was acute nervousness at the top of our organization. Roy Grace spends a huge amount of time briefing and reassuring the Chief Constable or his ACCs that he has a strong grip on his investigations. His first encounter with his new boss ACC Peter Rigg, soon after his team picked up the investigation into the rape of Nicola Taylor in Dead Like You, presented him with a dilemma I was often faced with: provide them with platitudes or the warts-and-all truth.
As a Gold commander of any incident, you are the person in charge; the buck stops with you. However, the Chief Officers have a right to know what you are doing. I took this responsibility as seriously as Grace does. It could be easier to tell the bosses what you thought they wanted to hear but, like Roy, I never did that. Of course it was necessary to tune into their wavelength and talk about the things that would rightly concern them rather than the minutiae. But sugaring the pill to make things appear better than they were will always come back to haunt you.
By the time I had taken on the role of Divisional Commander at Brighton and Hove in 2009, the conflict between Israel and Palestine was flaring up, austerity was starting to bite and immigration rarely left the front pages. Amid all the cuts, this was a time of growth for public order policing.
Added to this was the rise of alternative politics, nowhere more so than in Brighton and Hove. Not only did part of the city elect the UK’s first Green MP, Caroline Lucas — for whom I have the most tremendous respect — but also its first Green-led council. The legitimacy of protest as a form of political engagement was burgeoning.
On a simple public order operation most of the work of the Gold commander is before the event. During the hours of meetings with the Silver commander I would set out exactly what I wanted the police to achieve. Then we would go about choosing the right people for the key Bronze roles, working out how many officers we needed in all the disciplines, consulting with the affected communities and agreeing a detailed yet flexible plan. It’s actually more complicated than that but you hope, on the day, that with a fair wind it will all go like clockwork and, other than checking in at regular intervals, you can crack on with other matters.
However, it became very clear late one wintry Wednesday afternoon in 2010 that I was about to truly earn my money. Having planned the policing for what was billed as a peaceful protest through the city centre, I decided that as the operation was running smoothly I could chair the weekly Divisional Command Team meeting.
We were just debating where we would take the next round of savings from when a normally demure inspector burst in and spluttered, ‘Er, Mr Bartlett. I’ve been monitoring the radio. I think you’d better go up to the Silver control room, it’s all kicking off out there.’
In a reflex response I crashed my chair back and ran towards the nerve centre, watched by my envious colleagues, who all wanted a piece of the action.
As I dashed up the two flights of stairs, a plethora of possible disasters raced around my mind. Any hope of sliding off early today had been well and truly dashed.
We were policing a protest by students and others, following the recent announcement that university tuition fees were to treble. I knew that many local school children had decided to join the demonstration.
As I reached the Silver Suite, I burst through the doors and glanced at the same bank of CCTV screens that Grace relied so heavily on as he frantically tried to locate Red Westwood in Want You Dead. I could see a line of anxious-looking police officers stretched out along the Churchill Square shop fronts facing a hostile crowd.