Episode 2 The Met: Policing London

Keep your hands on your head!

Do not move!

London...

-POLICE SIREN BLARES

-Get out of the way!

..home to over 8.5 million people.

This Taser is capable of delivering 50,000 volts.

The task of protecting them falls to the country's biggest police force.

You're under arrest, all right?

Hello, Metropolitan Police, how can I help?

I've got a Taser, show me your hands!

I've got a Taser, show me your hands!

In a single year they're called

to 90,000 robberies and burglaries...

Oh, my goodness gracious me.

Chasing suspects, Cardinal Street.

..100 murders...

You've been identified as being responsible for the murder of

David McKenna.

..and make more than 190,000 arrests.

-Bingo.

-Gun!

Gun.

You unlawfully and maliciously caused grievous bodily harm. Can you

think of a reason now why I should give you bail for this matter?

It's my birthday tomorrow.

It's a force seen by some as the enemy...

Relax!

Black people growing up around here

feel that the police is against them.

My driver that has come under attack with a glass bottle

has had his head split open and another officer

has been stabbed in the back of the head.

..as they deal with life...

You're 13, what are you doing using language like that? Come on, man.

..death...

Cockney paradise.

..crime and its victims...

We lock up the bad people so that people like you can sleep

safe and sound.

..24 hours a day.

In London, more guns than ever are falling into the hands of criminals.

GUNFIRE

Armed police!

While this is just a training exercise, the added threat of

terrorism has forced the Met to rethink how it uses armed police.

They've decided to recruit an extra 600 specialist firearms officers,

bringing the number in the capital to just under 3,000.

Derek is one of the Met's most experienced firearms officers

with nearly 20 years as an armed policeman.

Even the highest judge in the land can't kill somebody,

but we have the ability to do that.

It's a massive responsibility.

None of us come to work wanting to do that.

A massive impact on my family and friends,

massive impact on me personally,

and a massive impact on the person that I've shot,

but if I have to do it...

..I'm willing to do it.

Yeah, received, have we done intel checks? Over.

As Trojan One on shift tonight,

Derek will be responsible for the Met's armed response.

-RADIO:

-The intel's coming through as quick as they can do it.

There's nothing as yet, we're just waiting for an update.

In essence, we have got what we believe to be a male in the street

in pyjamas, pacing up and down,

believed to have mental health issues, in possession of a hand gun.

So we're just trying to...

just trying to do the best we can

around trying to get some intelligence about the address

and also get our resources together,

so that we are in a position to go and deal with him.

A ground team has failed to locate the gunman,

but with fears over his mental health,

a police helicopter is brought in to search the area.

We have a view of the suspect.

Is it possible he could have changed his clothing or anything like that?

Male, believed to be IC3, tall and skinny build. Slim build.

Wearing pyjamas, no idea if he's changed.

He's waiting for someone. Bit suspicious, meets the description.

Information comes in that the man

has been seen entering a flat nearby.

Are we set to go if we've got to go down there?

-Yeah.

-Right, cheers.

We know that some of the windows are boarded, but not sure which ones.

We have to get down there because I want to minimise risk to the public.

I don't want him coming out,

but then I don't want to provoke anything.

What we're planning to do now is send the officers down to do

an armed containment on the address.

What we're really conscious of is

the fact we don't want to close him down too much

because if he's got mental health issues

we need to give him as much space as possible.

If we use these weapons, the scrutiny can last two years or more.

We've had people charged with murder, we've had people arrested.

If you've got that in the back of your mind, you cannot do this job.

As a forced entry could result in a violent clash, Derek orders his team

to knock on the suspect's door to see if he will come out peacefully.

Hello?

All right, sir. Just come down here.

Just come out here, and speak to you, sir.

-Hello.

-Stop there. Just there.

-Hello.

Put your hands, just back, come here, you all right?

Just put your hands back there. We just need to speak to you.

Is there anybody else in the address?

-OK.

-Turn around and face the wall for us. Good man.

Just detaining you for the purpose of a search, OK?

I'm Constable Williams.

The reason believed is that you might be in possession of a firearm.

I'll try to move swiftly.

You're detained for the purpose of a search, do you understand that?

Do you know why we're here?

Have you got any gun? Any real gun? Any toy gun?

-Where?

-And what sort of toy gun is it and where is it?

And whereabouts is it, mate?

OK, and where's the bed? If you go through the front door...?

OK.

With the man detained, the team can search for the toy gun.

Fair play to the lady cos that is exactly what she described,

wasn't it, to be fair?

We've found what appears to be a bag of Class A under his bed,

which we're doing on body-worn video as we speak and we'll seize

it and bring it to custody at Wembley.

I'm really glad that job went well because that job had the

potential to be a completely different outcome.

We dealt with it well, in my opinion.

The guys are all happy and that means a lot to me.

They don't want to be wrapped up in everything that comes with

discharging a firearm whether that's fatal or non-fatal.

The Met estimate there may be up to 200 organised gangs across

the capital, accounting for a quarter of all violent crime

and half of all shootings.

In north-west London,

a long-running turf war has had horrific consequences.

A drive-by shooting of a man walking along a London street

has been treated as a tragic case of mistaken identity.

Detectives believe an automatic weapon was used in the

gang-related attack in Harlesden.

They say the victim wasn't the intended target.

The Met believe that Oliver Tetlow was an innocent casualty of

a violent feud between two gangs.

Tetlow was shot repeatedly on Church Road,

the heart of an area notorious for gang violence.

In the two months since his death,

at least six other people have been shot on the surrounding streets.

This area is notorious.

In February, we had a shooting down the bottom there,

we've had stabbings around here, muggings.

It's a worrying thing.

I remember when I was growing up it wasn't as bad.

Now it's just... It's just horrific.

I don't know what to say, but we need help.

Especially for that murdered one...the

son who died in front the...

Oh.

Sorry.

We need help, that's all I can say.

Paul Connelly and Hitesh Patel work for Trident,

the Met's specialist unit set up to tackle gang violence.

We are talking about young lads that are stabbing and shooting

each other over a postcode, you know, and that's not what we want.

That's not what I want in my community.

It's just always these tit-for-tat shootings and stabbings,

which are going on all the time. It's become normal.

With tensions escalating in Harlesden, Paul and Hitesh

are tasked with removing one of the gangs.

Over the past couple of months there's been an increase in

recent gang tensions, culminating in numerous weapon-related offences,

most notably the murder in Church Road itself.

The intention for today solely is to disrupt members of

the gang through use of current intelligence

and the tactic of stop and search.

The large scale stop and search is intended to link suspected gang

members to serious criminality by uncovering drugs or illegal weapons.

The reason why we have to stop and search people is because

there is knife crime, there is drugs being sold.

If there were no-one committing any of these crimes then there

wouldn't be a necessity to do it.

The general consensus of it is that people think it's too

heavy-handed, it's just done too much,

but what our plan today is not to just go in and just stop

anyone that's on that street, it's all going to be intelligence-led.

While Hitesh and Paul wait out of sight, two unmarked vans are

sent into the heart of Church Road each one holding 12 officers

specially trained to carry out the stop and search.

This live feed is coming from a camera we've got

just down the road on Church Road.

The reason we're using this is so we know exactly the right time

to call on the strike.

You know, this is what they do every single day.

They're dealing cannabis, but they're also very heavily

involved in the Class A supply in this area.

We've got evidence of this gang drug-dealing from ten o'clock

in the morning till 2 o'clock in the morning.

That's open longer than Tesco's.

You know, we've only got one shot at this,

we can't use this tactic time and time again because they'll get used

to it, so we want to get the maximum number of people stopped that

that we can.

Looks to be an exchange just there, actually.

Looks like there's some hand to hand movements, just there.

Let's go.

Yeah, no-one. Let's go, mate. Go.

SIRENS BLARE

TYRES SCREECH

What do you think I'm doing?

Mate, what's the matter?

-Yeah, relax.

-Come on, I don't want my face...

-Yeah, relax.

All right, calm down, man.

At the moment these boys have all been stopped and searched under

Section 23 - the Misuse Of Drugs Act by the TSG.

As you can tell, as predicted, it's a bit of a shock to them.

Some of them aren't very happy about it.

There's a strong smell of cannabis around here,

so I'm pretty confident there'll be some drugs around here somewhere.

And so what it is, this gentleman's

been stopped as part of a big group of 'em.

There's, erm...

quite an amount of cannabis there,

there's some cash in the other pocket as well.

This chap's been nicked for possession with intent to

supply Class B and apparently another chap over there

has been nicked for the same thing.

Loads of money been found and it's the right people as well,

so it's been good.

Obviously, as you can see, all the community are out.

Everyone's out so they're loving what's happening...

to a certain degree.

Three people have been arrested for drug offences,

but some of the locals are unhappy with the police tactics.

I don't feel too good about it.

I just don't like the way the situation is approached.

They come in here pushing my cousin

when they're not even involved,

they just finish and just passing through

earing up everybody like usual.

I think that's wrong. It's too aggressive,

and then when we are aggressive it's a different story,

so that's what I'm saying, end of story.

-young boy lost his life down there...

-Yeah, I know.

..three months ago.

And we know he had nothing to do with any gangs, nothing like that.

-Who's come forward and said who did it?

-Yeah.

-This is what I was saying.

No-one's done it, no-one's come forward.

A lot of people around here see YOU as the problem.

We are the animals, right? And you are somehow the gatekeepers.

Right? That's how you come across to us.

-OK.

-It's as simple as that.

Those kind of looks are those kind of looks that I am used to.

-You lock people away, right? You stop and search...

-Innocent people?

-Yes.

-Really?

-Yes. I've been stopped and searched 17 times in my life.

-Mm.

-And nothing was ever found.

-Mm-hmm.

Most of the black people growing up around here feel that the

police is against them.

Do you accept that there was a boy that got killed here three

-months ago?

-I do accept that.

Did you know that there was a firearms incident here at the

-weekend?

-I do accept that.

-What do you want the police to do?

How are we supposed to respond to it?

Right, if the police was actually around before the person got shot

and they actually did their intelligence work properly,

that person would not have been shot.

The police needs to change the way it polices, right,

if it wants people to cooperate.

Because at the moment you are really applying a them and us mentality.

I think the problem we've got is that a lot of people just think

police are against the black community, like they keep saying.

I mean, I'm an ethnic minority myself. I don't think there's racist

attitudes. The chap earlier said about us engaging with the public.

We try. I used to work in Hackney, we used to do it all the time,

but some of these boys are so far entrenched in to the gang

lifestyle and the profitability of selling drugs that they're

not going to, sadly, get out of it, unfortunately.

No-one has been assaulted, no-one has been punched,

no-one has been placed on the floor.

I've seen arguments with people, that's it.

If people think that's oppressive, I'm not quite sure how we're supposed

to react to people that we think have got knives on them.

It was an intelligence-led stop and that's what people want.

By using this tactic we got drugs back tonight,

we may have weapons back tonight,

undoubtedly we'll prevent any more crime and anti-social behaviour.

If we come down in an hour's time, you know, there'll be the normal

residents going about their business which is exactly what we want.

What there won't be is people selling drugs on the street.

And that's why we've done it.

In North London, Sgt Steve Brown runs a team dedicated to tackling

an epidemic of phone snatching.

This is what they will do. They will look around, steal the

mopeds and then take them to go and do all the snatches.

Around the corner from the stolen bikes,

three local kids spot Steve's car and run off.

Stand there for me. Just stand there. You're going to be searched under Section One of

the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

There's two stolen mopeds around the corner and they've been

stolen with keys, so therefore I'm searching you for those keys.

No. I've just told you a reason.

I just told you the reason.

How many phone snatches are you on bail for? 15?

It's not good, is it?

Over the last five years, moped snatch robberies have increased

tenfold across London.

Islington is a hotspot with just under 100 phone snatches

a month recorded in 2016.

Many on stolen mopeds.

It's a very lucrative crime, it happens within seconds.

You're on your mobile phone walking along the street and,

before you know it,

somebody's come up from behind you and snatched your phone and

all you basically see is the back of them on a moped, dark clothing.

The suspects can sell the phones on for quite a good profit.

Those same people will be involved in gang violence.

They will go out as a crew and they will nick five/six phones...

..and then go to ground.

The number of snatches has risen, but the age of the offenders is

falling. The most arrested age being between 15 and 17 years old.

Do you not think phone snatching is scummy?

You robbed a phone the other day off a pregnant woman.

She was pregnant, she was pregnant.

You don't care. Typical, eh?

All right boys, we're finished with you.

Yeah. Do your job properly.

Hopefully I will do and I'll catch you doing something later.

With no moped keys or stolen property found, Steve lets the boys go.

Arrested 60-odd times, phone snatches, on bail

for 15 phone snatches.

Nice! Parents must be really proud!

Society today, eh?

This is the estate where I grew up. Really good estate.

Good friends from here.

And, ironically, it is now where I police.

This is where I used to live.

That's my old house, there.

I think it's quite rare now in the Met that you have a proper Londoner

that grew up in London, you know.

Yeah, a majority of my childhood's been spent here, in the Barnsbury.

It brings back a lot of memories. Really good times here.

This was my manor, you know what I mean,

as I kid I used to run around this manor all day long and now as

an adult at 38, I'm still running around this manor, but I'm on

the other side now, ain't I, chasing 'em!

It's weird seeing them because...

they speak to you as if you don't know what it's like round here.

Little do they know this was my place before they were even

a twinkle star in the sky.

You know what I mean? I've been there, done it, you know.

I think society has changed an awful lot.

When I was younger, yeah, we was mischievous, got into trouble,

but you didn't get arrested.

Now it's not uncommon for a 14/15-year-old to have been

arrested ten times already and those can involve serious crimes

like burglary, robbery, carrying knives etc.

So it has changed an awful lot with regards to areas like this where

I grew up on.

It's 10pm.

Derek and the firearms team have been called to assist with

a case involving a suspected gang member.

We believe from information received -

and that's all you need to know -

is that a male is coming to an address some time tonight

to collect a firearm from an unknown female.

We believe at the moment that that gun is in the address.

We're not sure if there's anybody in the address with it.

There was a local shooting last night and

as with these things, unfortunately,

what happened last night spills over into tonight.

That firearm may well get used as a retaliation.

The real objective is to recover that firearm...

..and arrest anybody that's associated with it.

Yeah, just for your information,

we've obtained a warrant for our address.

So we're going forward to execute that now.

CHATTER ON POLICE RADIO

With intelligence suggesting the man is on his way to retrieve the gun,

the decision is made to force entry to the flat and find

the weapon before he does.

Armed police!

Armed police! Open the door.

DOG BARKS

Two people are immediately arrested and taken away,

but it's the flat's third occupant who is of most interest.

She's obviously quite scared.

What she's told the officers is that she's got a gun.

OK, down there.

Obviously it's on a police evidence bag.

It's not been made safe. It looks like a self-loading pistol.

So, in other words, magazine into the bottom of it.

It'll be a semi-automatic pistol,

so every time you pull the trigger it'll fire a round.

If you were convicted of an offence of possession of

a firearm, it would be a minimum sentence of five years.

Although the gun has been seized, its suspected owner is still

at large, but cameras have spotted him a mile away in his car.

Control.

RADIO CHATTER

We believe he may have the vehicle...

Can you confirm it's got a black roof?

Control. We're two behind this vehicle...

INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER

The helicopter is over it at the moment cos we obviously

don't want to scare him into making off.

So what we're going to do is...

do a handover from helicopter to the armed response vehicles

and then we'll put the stop in and hopefully arrest him.

Control, MPS61, we are happy that

this is the same vehicle that's being talked about by the dog van.

If you want us to take over the commentary,

I'm more than happy to do so.

As they need to act quickly,

the armed response vehicles move in convoy towards the car.

That's it.

If you can give me a commentary on this channel.

With the suspect in their sights,

they prepare to surround the vehicle.

They've stopped him.

OK, so the bloke in the white T-shirt is going to be

arrested for the suspected possession of that firearm.

So, how long have you been at the hostel?

Two or three months.

Where were you before then?

Oh, OK.

The gang members, they think nothing of shooting somebody.

Life is cheap to them.

And whether that's because they see that they've got no future,

I don't know.

-You working?

-Yes.

-What as?

Oh, OK. Is that around here?

Probably like an addiction for them.

They've got their parallel lives, but they still come back to it.

They go to prison, they come back to it.

You know, they leave school and they start going to, you know,

into work and they still get drawn back to it.

There are times when you do think, you know,

"I feel sorry for this guy," but then you still have to be conscious

of the fact that maybe they've put themselves there.

In North London, Sgt Steve Brown has spotted

a moped that may be involved in phone snatches.

Put it up on main set, please.

When the moped fails to stop, Steve must get formal approval from

the Control Room to continue the pursuit.

When the passenger takes his helmet off, Steve makes the decision

to end the pursuit.

POLICE RADIO CHATTER

HE SIGHS

POLICE RADIO CHATTER

A few months ago Steve was pursuing a moped,

when it crashed into a taxi.

That's me running out of the car.

I detained him off the moped.

Unfortunately, he suffered a broken leg, erm,

from his injuries through the crash.

He was actually searched and found to be in possession of

a large quantity of drugs.

Erm, it's shocking, but we are not going to let people on mopeds

just carte blanche commit crime and do nothing about it.

That's not what I believe the majority of the public want

us to do, and that's not what I personally will do.

In Islington, the police pursuit policy has been controversial

since the death of a local teenager on a moped.

The police watchdog is investigating the death of a teenager who

crashed his moped as he was being chased by officers in North London.

18-year-old Henry Hicks,

who was said to have failed to stop when asked,

struck a number of cars on Friday night and died later in hospital.

The events leading up to Henry's death are still under investigation

by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and a coroner's inquest.

Paul, can we get the last known direction of this snatch moped, please?

Today Steve's team are tracking two suspects on a moped,

who have reportedly been snatching phones across the city.

So they've gone Southwark, Islington, Hackney,

now we're out in Tower Hamlets.

And it's been seen to be armed with knives

That's the bike.

Using the Find My Phone function they track one of the stolen

handsets back to Islington.

He was in this area...

..six minutes before we got here,

but what they've done is got here, turned the phones off immediately

and this is the location we heard from them.

So we're literally only about four minutes behind them.

Royal Free Square!

The suspects have been spotted nearby.

SIREN BLARES

SIREN BLARES

-All right, all right, all right. Relax!

-I'm not doing nothing. Relax!

I'm absolutely calm, boss.

-Sit down and stop mucking around.

-Stop resisting.

Keep your hands where I can see them. Do you understand?

Relax!

The large police presence has drawn the attention of locals,

including the family of Henry Hicks.

Them guys killed my son.

Oi, he ain't done nothing!

-Hey, hey, stand back.

-No, you...

Don't touch my mum! Don't touch my mum!

Don't fucking touch me! Go and get some real criminals!

Fucking wankers!

Just chased another fucking motorbike, have you?

Ain't you clever? Fucking arsehole clever, ain't you?

Is it quite difficult in situations like that?

Um, to be honest with you, it's to be expected.

We've obviously chased two robbers through the estate,

and then out of the blue, the Hicks family,

cos they live nearby, come straight up to us, trying to

tell us, "Go after proper criminals," what are we doing harassing them?

And turning it all about into their case they've got going on.

Basically what they were trying to do, and I don't mind it being

on camera, the Hicks family there, is protect criminals.

That's what they were trying to do.

Trying to stop us from doing our job, from them two lads who

have been all the way across London, robbing females of their phones.

I'll leave it up to you to decide.

On arrest, the two teenagers are searched,

but they are not carrying any of the stolen phones.

No, they've definitely come up there.

We've got the bike around the corner.

-There's going to be a rucksack somewhere.

-Yeah, that's what...

Cos he had the rucksack on,

so he's literally come up that road there and bumped straight into you.

We think it's an iPhone. It's a case.

18 phones have been reported stolen.

So far they've found some cases, but only one handset.

So, he must have ditched the rucksack from this point.

It's inevitable, they must have took a left turn here.

-Is there someone in there.

-Uh?

-Oh, can you go through?

-Yeah.

-See that red and grey one there?

-See the red and grey one there?

I think they've lobbed it over and it's come through.

Oh! All the phones.

There's loads.

There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,

nine, ten, 11...

About 15 phones.

THEY LAUGH

You beauty.

So, he's literally run through, and then as he's running,

he's lobbed the bag over.

On the black market, each one of them,

you're looking at their sell-on - 100, 150 each.

So, how many phones we've got there?

You're looking at about two and a half grand in total.

-Oh, yeah, baby!

-Oh-ho!

-Weren't this reported in a knife fight and all that earlier?

-Yes.

And that's what they've also had in the rucksack.

The moped was reported on another borough being involved in an

altercation with combat knives as well,

and that's obviously the sort of people you're dealing with.

That's a nasty knife.

You get massive satisfaction from a job like that.

They've done so many robberies all across London,

and to actually get them yourself,

and get all the phones back to the victims,

and take a knife on the street, and get the stolen phone, yeah,

it's a good result, it's a good result.

It's organised crime.

SIREN BLARES

Six miles away in north-west London,

the Trident team have been investigating

a gang thought to be involved in a recent spate of shootings.

For the last three months,

13 individuals believed to have links to the gang

have been put under surveillance,

which has connected them to large-scale drug dealing.

We've noticed that they're involved in a lot of violence

within the area. However, proving

that is proving to be difficult.

Without witnesses, without forensics,

we're not going to get these guys for the violence offences.

Our aim is to get them off the streets any which way we can, really.

And if it means not a violence offence,

and it's drug dealing, then so be it.

They hope that by removing key gang members from the area,

they may bring to an end the violence on the streets.

Oh, look. This is our convoy on the right.

Days like this are good, because it's 10, 12, 15

addresses all getting done at the same time.

And they're totally oblivious to it all because they're fast asleep.

-Police!

-Police!

THEY SHOUT

More than 100 officers have been brought in for the dawn raids.

-Police officers!

-ON RADIO:

-Yeah, stand by, stand by.

'The main thing we want to try and do is make sure

'the subject gets arrested.

'Any drugs or weapons, obviously, is a bonus,

'but our first and foremost priority is getting the subject.'

Just keep walking to the van, mate.

The suspects are picked off one by one...

..and their homes are searched by a specialist team.

In here, is it, or...?

On a nearby estate,

Hitesh has been called to the home of a woman and her young child.

It is believed the gang are using the flat to stash drugs,

but the search team have made another discovery.

There's a Taser there. It was found in a jacket in the cupboard.

Yeah, we do have the odd gang boys who do have Tasers.

Especially ones like this which don't necessarily look like anything.

It could be... It could quite easily be an old camera or

a mobile phone or anything, couldn't it?

And being in the girl's bedroom, like, a small child, she could

quite easily pick that up, thinking, "What is this, Mummy?"

Whilst mum is fast asleep, she is there messing around with this,

and pressing a few buttons,

and before you know it, she's tasered herself.

As it's classed as a firearm,

possession of a stun gun can result in a five-year sentence.

If you can go this side for me, please, mate.

So far, most of the targets have been arrested.

As well as drugs,

thousands of pounds have been seized as part of the raids.

This is probably the biggest find of the day so far.

-It's been seized from

-BLEEP

who is Subject Everton in our operation.

He's sat on a good £5,000 here.

If he fails to account for this money, this will be seized from him,

and this will go back into the public purse.

What we do find with these boys is they love to show off their cash.

They love to take photographs of themselves holding loads of money

and show off to their mates on their Facebook and Twitter accounts

and stuff like that.

And I assure you, nothing hurts these people more

than us taking their money.

A number of other items have also been found that link the group

to drug dealing.

This person here has not one phone...

He's 18 years old, doesn't work...

Two...

three...

four...five phones.

These are quite typical of what we find in people

that are involved in drug supply.

These are identical phones. These phones are dual-SIM phones and so,

potentially, just in these three phones there,

he's got the capability of six different phone lines.

He could have an incoming call for drug dealing and an outgoing call

to call his friends, and he can give various different phone numbers.

And it's obviously a tactic. These guys aren't completely stupid.

They do know that the police are...

The methodology that the police can use around phones.

And they're a bit wise to it.

With strong evidence of each suspect selling drugs,

they are facing jail sentences of up to four years.

-BLEEP,

-yeah?

-Yeah.

We're going to go through some charges in a moment. OK, mate?

I've got to read them all out to you...

All these boys will be getting criminal behaviour orders

for five years,

so that'll prevent these 13 from going anywhere near the Church Road.

Which is good because all the locals all see these boys.

These are the ones that hang around on the street,

so to not be there for five years is a big thing.

From past history, there's always going to be some younger guys

who are going to step up into these boys' shoes

because the money to be earned is such a vast amount.

It's what attracts these boys.

Sadly, I've done this job long enough and been around gangs

long enough to know that none of these boys will change.

That's not me being negative, but it's reality.

-ALL:

-Justice!

-When do we want it?

-Now!

-What do we want...

Since the death of Henry Hicks, his family have led a campaign

to reveal more details about the events that led to his moped crash.

We want justice!

The family believe it was the pursuit by two unmarked police cars

that caused his death.

We've only just started this protest at the moment.

They're not giving me, my wife and my family no comments

at all why my son died, why he was chased.

This will go on and on and on until we get answers.

Two years since their protest began,

the Hicks family are still waiting.

We've been treated disgustingly by the police.

It's been over two years now.

We're still sort of in the same place as we was when it happened.

We don't really have many answers.

We don't want anyone else to have to go through what we've gone through.

It is so hard.

They need to think about other people's safety.

I mean, they're going around chasing these young children...

And was it really worth it?

I will never, ever, ever get over losing my baby brother.

It just breaks my heart that I'm never going to see him again.

He was everything to all of us, and we just miss him so much.

Today, the Met Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe

is in Islington to chair a public meeting.

Henry Hicks' family have also come.

Right, good evening, everybody. Welcome.

Thanks for coming. London being a big place, I don't get enough

opportunity to either meet my own staff or members of the public.

So, in a city of this size, with 8.6 million people, 32 boroughs,

it's just quite a hard challenge to meet people very often.

But at least it gives me some flavour of the issues.

And hopefully the people who are in the room have got a chance

to ask a few questions.

Yes.

And I'm Henry's dad.

My son got stopped 156 times in a three years.

Stop and searches.

Never been arrested.

Never had a conviction.

So, could you tell me why my son got stopped 156 times?

Could you answer that question?

APPLAUSE

Now, for the Hicks family, first of all,

I'm sorry about the loss of your son.

And I know that nothing I can say or do will put that right.

So, on the 18th May it was decided by the Crown Prosecution Service

that the officers would not face criminal charges,

which I believe you have been told about.

What is now happening is the IPCC and the Met

have got to decide whether the officers should face

any misconduct charges.

So, that's a second stage which delays it.

So, all I can say is that, in this case,

the suspension wasn't appropriate but a restriction of duties was.

What that means is that they won't meet the public, generally.

Now, the other part, as you said, is about the stop search element

and whether Henry was stopped and searched too much, and improperly, or not.

I don't know what happened on all those occasions you've mentioned

and I'd be misleading you to give you any comfort

that I could judge it one way or another,

because, as you know, there is an inquest to be held

really in a matter of days into Henry's death,

which is under the coroner, and they will

obviously have to hear all the evidence and decide what they feel.

-Thank you very much. Very kind of you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you so much. Have a nice evening.

-Good evening.

-Good evening.

The coroner's report will provide an answer to the question of whether

Henry died from reckless driving

or as a result of a police pursuit.

Of course, it's terrible, they've lost a son.

I can't answer all their questions, and clearly people in the audience

know a little about the story but not everything.

But at least they had an opportunity in front of other people

to make their point.

I hope people found it was useful.

POLICE SIREN WAILS

It's 11pm, and Derek gets a call from Trident

requesting urgent backup.

INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER

But he's doing 60 down the Cricklewood Broadway,

which is going to be hard for the surveillance team to stay with that.

Intelligence has come in that a suspect being tracked in a car

has a gun on him, so the armed response teams have been called in

to try and stop the vehicle.

He's southbound Cricklewood Broadway,

so he's southbound Kilburn High Road, down towards Cricklewood Broadway,

which will actually bring us out right on him down here.

Oh. Right. Knock it off.

Go that way, then knock it off.

The suspect is now inside a building,

and being watched by a covert Trident unit.

So, the firearms team meet nearby to plan their next move.

If we think they are in possession of a gun, we want them and the gun.

If he's gone into the premises,

we would need a warrant to go into that premises.

The decision in this occasion is that we wait for the person

or persons to come back to the vehicle.

When the vehicle starts to move off,

the surveillance team will follow it and then we will do the stop.

The suspect is back on the move,

and being tracked by the covert unit.

The surveillance team will get behind him and then hopefully

we'll leapfrog the surveillance team and put the stop in.

The problem is, he's making progress as well,

so he's undertaking vehicles as well.

We're playing catch-up at the moment.

Head towards Ladbroke Grove, Ladbroke Grove, over.

Right. It's gone to State Amber,

which means it's down to us to stop it.

Knock it off.

'The only time you're going to use that gun is if you believe there

'is an imminent threat to life.

'If their honestly held belief is that person has got a firearm,

'well, then they may have to use their firearm to deal with that threat.'

Guys, we're down at... Stand by...

Beaufort Street.

Intelligence comes in that there's more than one person in the car,

and with it speeding towards central London,

the firearms team have to make the stop.

State Red. Don't get too close. Don't get too close.

There's that... It's their Focus. Yeah.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

Stand up. Move all these out the way.

Right, you are being detained for the purposes of

a firearm search, all right?

We have information that there is a firearm in that car.

The driver and the two female passengers are detained

so a search of the car can begin.

Mate, there's a couple of bags in the footwell.

-You got it?

-Bingo.

-Right, gun!

-Gun?

In the glove box, wrapped up in blue,

we believe that's a firearm.

As a suspected weapon has been found,

a forensics expert is brought in to remove it safely.

It's there, it's ready to use.

You know, if somebody attacks him, is he going to use it,

or is he going to drive it somewhere to use it?

Is he going to drop his female passengers off and then go off

into the night? Or is he going to go off, sell it,

he's going to hand it over to somebody... Who knows? Who knows?

All I know is that

with the joint work between Trident and ourselves tonight

that whatever was going to happen with that gun

won't happen with that gun, because it's now in our possession.

Six miles away in North London,

Steve is looking for a group of suspicious teenagers

on bicycles, wearing masks.

INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER

Control, the informant said they were definitely coming towards

the direction of Essex Road way, didn't they?

'Newington Green Road towards Essex Road.'

Lovely, thank you.

We've just had a call from a member of the public saying they've seen

three blokes on mountain bikes from Newington Green Road

heading towards this way, Essex Road, where we are now,

looking like they're going to snatch people's phones.

That's all we've got at the moment,

so I've just deployed two of mine out on foot on the footpath,

try to intercept them if they come this way.

I've got solo motorbikes around the area and another Q car somewhere.

Yep, I've got them at Essex Road into St Paul's, Essex Road,

left left into St Paul's.

One suspect has been stopped nearby,

but the other two make off through the local park.

Just remember, lads, this lad likes to carry a blade, doesn't he?

SPORADIC RADIO CHATTER

Police!

Are you all right?

Oh... Yeah, course you was.

Course you was.

You're a phone snatcher.

-No, I'm not.

-You are, mate. You know you are, mate,

you've been done for it loads of times. What you run off from us for?

The suspect hiding in the bushes is a teenager that Steve knows well.

What's the balaclava about?

You going to tell me it's for when it gets cold?

That come with the bike?

I don't believe you.

I feel you've got that balaclava to conceal your identity

to then go and commit crime.

Mate, you've got a look at it from our point of view.

No, I don't think you're Pablo Escobar!

Nowhere near, mate.

But the question you've got to ask yourself,

do you want this life for yourself?

You know? You've got to start thinking straight, mate,

looking after yourself, know what I mean?

You know? How old are you now?

15!

You're still young, mate.

Everything you've done in the past, got nicked for and all that

sort of thing, will stay on your juvie stuff.

You start turning, another two years and that,

it's going to follow you around for the rest of your life.

You know what I mean? There's got to be better stuff than this. You know?

Get a bird.

'Growing up in inner London on an estate,

'there were certain life choices I had to make when I was young,

'you know? I could have easily gone down the wrong road.

'I know there's good friends of mine that did.

'Thankfully, I started work when I was 14 as a market trader,

'so that sort of put me in the work ethos and I just luckily

'made the right choices.'

Where are we staying tonight, Nan's?

I'm going to take you to Nan's.

I'll get your bike there as well because what happens

if I leave it round here?

It'll be a problem.

We welcome the conclusion and thank the coroner and jury for

their careful consideration of the evidence.

You know, the police always maintained

-he wasn't being pursued, but the jury rejected that.

-Yes.

I mean, we only ever wanted the truth and that's what we got,

the truth.