Police were today hailed for their “magnificent” efforts in helping to deliver a 40 per cent cut in offending at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival.
It comes as the Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said the “whole feel” of the event has changed for the better in the past two years.
Ms Dick said she was “incredibly proud” of the way her officers had coped with the record heat as well as the demands of managing a “unique event” in which a mass of people, vehicles and a minority seeking to cause disorder posed a formidable challenge.
She also praised carnival organisers for trying their best to ensure a successful and safe event as she disclosed that crime and arrest figures were both down on the high totals recorded in earlier years.
Offences recorded over the weekend total 386 so far, compared with 647 in 2018, with fewer serious incidents and none of the near-fatal stabbings that marred earlier years.
“I’m incredibly proud of the officers. It was an excellent policing operation,” she told the Standard.
In pictures - Notting Hill Carnival 2019, day two
“It’s always challenging. It’s a unique operation, there’s nothing like it in the world: a million people attending over a couple of days in a reasonably confined space, with vehicles, and all the challenges that brings.”
She added: “The whole feel of carnival has changed in the last couple of years …the combination of having vehicle blockers because of the terrible possibility of a vehicle attack on a large crowd like that and the search arches and officers deployed at the entrances.
In pictures - Notting Hill Carnival 2019, day one
“On the one hand, I think it makes people feel safer and on the other if you are intending to cause violence or carry a weapon, it causes you to swerve away.
Initial crime figures are down and that’s really because of the enormous policing operation.”
Police figures currently show 354 arrests including 34 involving possession of offensive weapons, 166 drug arrests, 12 for sexual offences, and 37 for assaults on police.
Ms Dick said officers had been “punched, kicked, spat at and bitten”, adding: “One was pushed and fell onto glass causing serious lacerations.
"Mostly this has been in the course of arrests. This is not acceptable. These are crimes. They shouldn’t happen.”
