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Met Police introduces patrols to protect women and girls at concerts

Met Police introduces patrols to protect women and girls at concerts

It comes ahead of 51 large-scale music events planned in London this summer, with more than three million people set to attend shows at Wembley Stadium alone.
The Met has introduced new violence against women and girls (VAWG) patrols alongside the V100 project, a new data-driven approach to identify serious sexual offenders and prevent crimes.
The operation began on June 5 at US singer Beyonce's concert at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and led to the removal of an individual on suspicion of stalking and threatening behaviour, as well as the arrest of a man for upskirting, who remains on police bail.
Ben Russell, Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, said: 'The V100 is our approach to identifying those men who are at the top end of carrying out the most serious and harmful attacks against women and girls – that's multiple serious sexual assaults.
'Thankfully, there are a relatively small number of offenders who we believe are behind the most serious crime.
'In the short time we've been running this initiative, we've already arrested 177 of our V100 nominals and 129 of them have been convicted for a range of serious offences.
'And this is about identifying through our data the men posing the biggest risk of women and girls in London and taking action in a very targeted, precise way.'
A young fan poses outside Wembley Stadium ahead of a concert (PA)
He added: 'With our VAWG patrols, there's two parts to them: Firstly, it's about engagement, so our officers talk to the public, really engage with them, having conversations, helping people to feel safe, and letting them know that if they've got concerns, they can come and speak to us.
'But the other part to it has a much harder edge, which is looking at the crowd and saying, 'who should not be here?'
'So that will not be so visible to normal concert-goers, but we will approach people we think should not be there and we will make sure they leave venues and leave the areas as quickly as possible.'
An additional 565 officers and staff have been drafted into public protection roles across the force, aimed at enhancing the domestic abuse, rape and sexual offence investigation teams.
The Met has also increased its live facial recognition tools to locate those wanted for offences and those subject to court orders, including sexual harm prevention orders.
Mr Russell added: 'For us and the Met, protecting women and girls has been one of our number one priorities for a while now, and we're working really closely with the Government on that, and we're supportive of the mission to try and halve violence against women and girls, over the life of this parliament.
'Part of the way we look at our success is trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police, so we track on a regular basis how much people feel that they think we're doing a good job, and that's something working with the mayor's office, we track regularly.
'It's also about just getting out and arresting people at these events. We think if we spot people in the crowds who are committing these offences and are making arrests, that's a good result.
'Equally, if we recording and these crimes, that tells us that the public have the faith to come forward with over three million people coming to these events in the summer, we know that some crime will take place, a relatively small amount, but when we're able to track it to identify it, to record it, and arrest suspects, that for us is a good result.'
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Three arrested as demo takes place outside hotel used to house migrants
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Three arrested as demo takes place outside hotel used to house migrants

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He says in the past 'you would actively dissuade families to view the remains', but the 'culture has changed' and relatives often want to see the remains to 'see their loved one for the last time'. Mr Allain added: 'No two people grieve the same way, you do get different reactions... I've had every emotion in front of me from families being perfectly lucid - not visibly distressed - through to people flailing around on the floor in grief.' 'Sometimes there's even anger directed towards you because they see you as the authority.' His first homicide case, in 1991, was a 'nasty' murder in Peckham where an old man was queuing up in a benefits office when three men dragged him into a disused warehouse and beat him to death. 'This guy was clubbed to death and then they set the whole building on fire,' he recalled. 'This poor guy's remains were found and I was the exhibits officer on that case which was quite unusual for a trainee detective back then.' Mr Allain, now a lecturer in policing, criminology and the criminal justice system at Brunel University of London, tells MailOnline about three memorable cases that have stuck with him throughout his career and beyond his retirement in 2017. The first case that sticks in Mr Allain's mind was finding the beaten and strangled body of New Zealander Cathy Marlow, who was murdered in her office block in Vauxhall by her ex-colleague Matthew Fagan, in 2007. Ms Marlow was killed after a cruel quirk of fate put them in the same place at the same time. She had come into work on the weekend only to find Fagan, who had been fired from the company, stealing computers. Ms Marlow's body was found in a shower cubicle at her office after she was tied up and throttled with her own scarf at the offices of market research company Research Now. Mr Allain was met with a grisly scene, where the walls and floor of the office were smeared with blood. 'She suffered a really significant head injury, there was lots of blood. And there were drag marks in blood down a corridor into a shower room and she was found slumped. in a shower room. The actual cause of the death was strangulation.' Mr Allain said he 'vividly' remembers Ms Marlow's family coming over from New Zealand after her death. 'Just imagine that you live on the other side of the world, and you get a call to say she's been murdered in her office block in the way that she had been,' he said. 'I just remember them being very lost really. They were in shock and didn't know where to turn and of course they were in a foreign country.' The detective also managed to piece together how the murderer proceeded to then steal the laptops as they found his blood - indicating there had been a struggle - under the desks where he had gone to disconnect the cables. The murderer had tried to claim he was mugged in Peckham at the time the attack took place in a bid to provide a false alibi. However, CCTV showed him going to and from the premises and when he was eventually charged and his name released to the public, someone called to say he had sold them the laptops on the following Sunday. Mr Allain admitted that forensic evidence is absolutely crucial when first approaching a crime scene as it brings the 'scene to life to determine what's happened' which can help you start to identity lines of investigation. Another case which sticks in the mind of Mr Allain after all these years is the grisly love triangle murder of a TV executive in February 2012. Gagandip Singh, 21, was bundled into the back of a boot before the vehicle was set on fire in Blackheath, south-east London. Harinder Shoker, 20, was sentenced to life with a minimum of 22 years for murder, while Darren Peters, 20, was jailed for 12 years for manslaughter. Mr Singh was murdered in a cold-blooded revenge plot after he allegedly attempted to rape 20-year-old Mundill Mahil. Mahil, who lured Mr Singh to her university house in Brighton, was jailed for six years for causing grievous bodily harm. The victim was unaware that Shoker and Peters were waiting for him in the bedroom and they violently attacked him, wrapped him in a duvet and put him in the boot of his Mercedes before taking the car to Blackheath and burning it. Mr Singh was still alive when the car went up in flames and died of breathing in toxic fumes. Recalling the gruesome case, Mr Allain said: 'When he arrived, he goes in there and he's basically battered with a camera tripod and he's bundled into his own Mercedes and then driven up to Blackheath, where they torched the car.' He continued: 'Obviously, we've got a situation where there's disfigurement of the body. It obviously makes life slightly more difficult. 'When you've got fire involved, of course that destroys any potential often for forensic evidence as well. 'You've got little or no chance of getting any sort of DNA or any other trace evidence, and you've obviously got the added where you've got to identify who the victim is, because visual identification is often impossible. 'You've got to manage the family as well in terms of do they want to see their loved one? We would never accept a visual identification, but obviously, once we know who the victim is, either through odontology or through DNA, the family may well want to view the body and that happened in this case. 'The mother and her daughter [Gagandip's sister] were insistent on seeing him which is difficult to manage.' The victim's sister, Amandip Kaur Singh, previously relieved the harrowing moment on 5Star, saying: 'Having to see the burnt body is something I can't believe, I don't know how we got through that. 'There was no skin, he had gone charcoal colour. His eyes had sunk in. He didn't even look like a human. It was scary, but he was my brother so I had to go.' Mr Allain said the case was 'memorable in a number of ways'. 'I think we picked that job up on a early Saturday morning, and by Wednesday we charged three people with murder and it was quite fast moving investigation.' Despite the fast investigation, the detective also encountered stumbling blocks that could have hampered the investigation. There were five students living in the house, none of whom contacted the police and left the address, while a neighbour subsequently told police they saw two men carrying a 'bulky object covered in a duvet' to the boot. He took down the number plate but only told police when they carried out house to house inquiries. Mr Allain explains: 'So you've got five medical students there who know something really bad has happened there. They don't contact the cops. 'And obviously you've got someone down the street who's seen something suspicious and didn't call the cops, which is fine, but it's a good example of the fact that don't assume that because someone's seen or heard anything that they are going to contact you.' The third case he recalls investigating was the gruesome murder of George Francis, a career criminal who was linked to the £26million Brinks-Mat heist. Mr Francis, 63, was shot four times at his haulage firm in Bermondsey, south London, by contract killers in 2003. Terence Conaghan, from Glasgow, and John O'Flynn, from Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, were convicted of murder. Mr Francis was savagely shot in the face, back, arm and finger after he tried to collect a £70,000 debt from a business contact, his Old Bailey trial heard at the time. The gangster was found slumped in the front seat with his legs hanging out of the front passenger door after he was gunned down while collecting a newspaper from his car. Mr Francis, described by prosecutors as a 'career criminal' with a 'chequered history' is believed to have played a role in helping to dispose of a large part of the Brinks-Mat gold bullion heist in 1983. Adding to the 'Brinks-Mat curse', he was the ninth man linked to the robbery to be killed Recalling the case, Mr Allain told MailOnline: 'That was quite an interesting case. It was challenging in a number of ways, because it cut across not just homicide, but organised crime.' In grisly detail, he revealed: 'It was an execution style shooting as well. The guy just turned up for work and he was just shot point blank range in the head. He was shot four times. 'It's quite chilling to think that the guy's just driving to work and then, all of a sudden, he's been shot in quite a cool and collected fashion.' Mr Allain explained how one of the first decisions to make in this case was whether you are going to 'extricate the body from the vehicle or take the vehicle with the body inside to a sterile location where you can conduct forensic work'. Mr Allain and and his team were able to snare the killers after a pair of glasses and a cigarette left at the scene showed traces of O'Flynn and Conaghan's DNA. Despite working on some horrific murder cases, the former detective is incredibly matter of fact when it comes to discovering dead bodies. He tells MailOnline: 'I think your initial feeling is dependent on the circumstances. You can be shocked in terms of how that person has died. With Cathy Marlow, she's died in her office block in quite an horrific attack... that does make you stop and think and it is quite shocking. 'But then there's a great sense of professional pride that takes over and think in terms of the mindset of just as horrific as this is, it is now my job to try and unpick what's happened and how it's happened, and start to bring offenders to justice.' The former detective says while he enjoys the odd investigative drama, his real obsession is true crime. He explains: 'It's interesting when you watch Silent Witness because you see the pathologist running around trying to investigate the murder, which obviously doesn't happen... it's totally in the world of fiction. 'There is a balance to be struck in making entertaining television to the public and having some level of continuity about policing practice.' 'Some of these dramatized murder series are pretty true true to life, and others go off on a bit of a fictional tangent sometimes, with a view to entertaining the public. 'I do watch occasionally some of these dramatized programs. But I also watch quite a lot of true crime,' he said.

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