Protests had 'massive' impact on policing - report

Armed police during an anti-immigration demonstration outside the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham on 4 August 2024

Rioting during the summer of 2024 had a "massive" impact on the ability to respond to other crimes, a report by West Yorkshire Police has claimed.

In addition, "regular" protests against the Israel-Gaza war staged at the Shipley headquarters of aerospace and defence firm Teledyne took officers "away from their respective ward areas", the force states.

Those demonstrations by pro-Palestine groups have led to emergency service call-outs that have lasted hours.

Bradford Council is due to be given an update on the impact of protests on policing in Shipley at a meeting later.

The report sheds further light on the impact of last summer's riots in the UK on local policing, and cites incidents, including attacks on buses in Shipley and Baildon, and a rise in shoplifting across the area.

Protests at Teledyne's base in Shipley depleted the number of officers available to deal with other crimes, a report states

The report's author, Insp Tany Ditta, states: "We have had the added pressures over the past 18 months of managing regular protests at the Teledyne site, which has taken officers away from their respective ward areas."

Last week four people were sentenced for their role in a rooftop protest at the factory on 15 May 2024. The protest saw £60,000 worth of damage caused to the factory.

Last summer's riots, which started in the wake of the murders of three girls in Southport, put pressure on police forces across the country.

"This had a massive impact on our staffing as local officers were used to support colleagues across the force to help maintain law and order which impacted massively on our capacity tackle some local issues," the report states.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, council members will be told that while some crimes fell in Shipley in 2024, including house burglary, robbery and violent crime, there were significant increases in other types of crime.

Insp Ditta's report states the number of shoplifting incidents rose from 335 in 2023, to 570 in 2024, while the number of commercial burglaries went from 176 to 221.

Extra police were deployed in Shipley town centre to "restore confidence in the local community and business within the town centre," the report added.

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