Past Notting Hill Carnivals
Since the carnival did not have local authority permission, initial police involvement was aimed at preventing it taking place at all, which resulted in regular confrontation and riots.
One notable time when this occurred was in 1976; police had been expecting hostility due to what they deemed as trouble the year before. Consequently, after discovering pickpockets in the crowd, police took a heavy-handed approach against the large congregation of blacks and it became "no-man's land". The 1600 strong police force violently broke up the carnival, resulting in the arrest of 60 people. In the aftermath of the event, the carnival was portrayed in a very pointed way, with those aiding the riots lumped together as the "trouble-makers" responsible.[60]
After the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival the Police Federation pressed for the introduction of riot shields to protect police from objects thrown at them, although the shields also had the potential for aggressive use, as in 1977.[61][62][63]
A change of policy came after a confrontation in 1987, which saw the Carnival being allowed to take place with police adopting a more conciliatory approach. During the 2000 Carnival, two men were murdered and future policing, while conciliatory, resulted in police deployment in large numbers – upwards of 11,000.
The Mayor of London's Carnival Review Group's report (published in 2004,[30]) led to the parades taking a circular rather than linear route, but a recommendation to relocate the event in Hyde Park has been resisted.[64][33] Some crimes associated with the carnival have taken place on its periphery: in 2007, two teenagers were wounded in separate shooting incidents just outside the carnival area on the Monday evening;[65] however, police said there had been a decline in the number of carnival-linked arrests in comparison with the previous year.[66]
The 2008 Carnival was marred by rioting at the very end of the weekend, involving about 40 youths battling with police, and more than 300 people were arrested.[67] The carnival has come under criticism for its cost to the London taxpayer, with the cost for policing the event more than £6,000,000; however, it is argued that this should be put into context since the carnival is estimated to bring approximately £93,000,000 into the local economy.[34][68]
Despite talk of the 2011 Carnival being cancelled in the wake of the early August riots in the UK that year,[69] it was seen as being relatively peaceful. Five people were arrested for a stabbing at Ladbroke Grove.[70] The victim was one of 86 people who were taken to hospital. In total 245 people were detained by police over the two days of the carnival.[71]
In recent years, the event has been much freer from serious trouble and is generally viewed very positively by the authorities as a dynamic celebration of London's multicultural diversity, though dominated by the Caribbean culture. However,there has been controversy over the public safety aspects of holding such a well attended event in narrow streets in a small area of London. A survey in 2016 commissioned by local Conservative Member of Pariament Victoria Borwick found that "Nine out of ten residents living along the route of the Notting Hill Carnival flee their homes to escape the 'frightening and intimidating' event."[35]
In 2016 there were over 450 arrests and five people were hurt in four knife attacks; however, the commander in charge of policing carnival, David Musker, said that the number of arrests had been inflated by the new Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.[72] Based on relative attendance figures, it has been said that crime rates for the Notting Hill Carnival and for Glastonbury or other music festivals are comparable,[73] and Ishmahil Blagrove, author of the book Carnival: A Photographic and Testimonial History of the Notting Hill Carnival, states: "Notting Hill Carnival, compared to Trinidad or Brazil, is one of the safest in the world – not just the second largest – it's one of the safest."[72] A report in 2004 by the GLA Policing Policy Director, Lee Jasper, criticised authorities for not addressing safety issues involved in over a million people attending a small inner-city residential area, quoting the Met Police spokesman Dave Musker, who in November 2016 said: "Each year … we come exceptionally close to a major catastrophic failure of public safety where members of the public will suffer serious injury."[74]
In the three weeks running up to the 2017 event, the police made 656 arrests, a pre-emptive crackdown that, as reported in The Guardian, "drew criticism from some, including the grime artist Stormzy, who replied to a series of tweets from the Metropolitan police: 'How many drugs did you lot seize in the run-up to Glastonbury or we only doing tweets like this for black events?'"[75] The number of arrests made during the two days of the 2017 Carnival was 313, compared with 454 in the previous year.[75] On both days, a minute's silence in tribute to the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire was observed at 3 pm by Carnival-goers, many of whom wore "green for Grenfell".[76][77][78]
Since 1987 there have been five deaths caused by violence at Notting Hill Carnival:
- 30 August 1987 – Michael Augustine Galvin, 23, stallholder – stabbed.[79]
- 26 August 1991 – Nicholas John Hanscomb, 38, bled to death after being stabbed in the thigh.[80][81]
- 28 August 2000 – Greg Fitzgerald Watson, 21, stabbed to death after an argument over food.[82]
- 28 August 2000 – Abdul Munam Bhatti, 28; the police treated his attack as racially motivated by a gang of "mainly black males", as described by a witness.[83] Nine men were sentenced for violent disorder in 2002.[84]
- 30 August 2004 – Lee Christopher Surbaran, 27, was shot by a gang using a machine pistol for "showing disrespect"; in 2005, three men were jailed for life for his murder.
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