UK Minister Said 70 Cops Hurt In Climate Protest - Bee Stings, Diarrhea,Toothache Among "Injuries"

[hatrack]

A minister apologised to parliament yesterday for telling MPs that 70 police officers were hurt during a climate change protest, after the Guardian revealed that most of the injuries were inflicted by insects or the heat. Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister, told MPs at Commons question time yesterday: "I was informed that 70 police officers were hurt and naturally assumed that they had been hurt in direct contact as a result of the protest. That clearly wasn't the case and I apologise if that caused anybody to be misled."

The apology followed a freedom of information request from the Liberal Democrats, which showed that no officers in the £5.9m police operation at Kingsnorth power station in Kent during August had been injured by protesters. Instead, police records showed that their medical unit had dealt mostly with toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and "possible bee stings".

David Howarth, the Lib Dem justice spokesman, asked Coaker to "revise his conclusion" that the policing was "proportionate and appropriate. Large numbers of protesters were injured at the hands of the police, especially by baton injuries," he said. Coaker said that he would be meeting representatives of the Association of Chief Police Officers to discuss the "lessons to be learned" from Kingsnorth, and the National Police Improvement Agency was carrying out an inquiry into the handling of the demonstration. Labour's David Taylor said: "When people expressed concerns about the vigour and resources devoted by the police to the Kingsnorth climate camp, we were told that it was justified because there were dozens of injuries that occurred. Unless the protesters are to be held responsible for wasps and the weather, aren't we to conclude that the justification used at that time was wholly bogus and vacuous?"

A spokesman for the climate camp welcomed the apology but said that activists were not surprised that the FoI requests had revealed no violence. "We are a completely peaceful movement. Yet for three years now we have been branded as a violent minority by the police and the government with no evidence whatever," said Nick Thorpe.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/16/kingsnorth-environment-police-inquiry-injuries

[cedric]

1. where there was violence

if you watch the youtube video's of the events was from the police wielding truncheons.

Pity the 'media; fails to mention that.

[Festivito]

2. BUT, I don't apologize for what my mislead may have caused.

He should be fired, along with all those who accepted that apology.