Jamie Whitehead
Live reporter

We're now bringing our live coverage of the Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on the policing of the Coronation weekend to a close. Thanks for joining us.

Alongside me today were Malu Cursino, Gem O’Reilly, Gabriela Pomeroy, Kathryn Armstrong, Brandon Livesay, Jack Burgess and Owen Amos, with contributions from home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford.

You can read more on this morning's proceedings here.

As we reported earlier, Just Stop Oil protesters interrupted this morning's hearing.

You can see the moment below.

Daniel Sandford
Home Affairs correspondent

We learned a few new things from today’s evidence.

Graham Smith, the CEO of Republic said his group had brought 600 placards in their van, which explains why they needed trolleys and the straps.

Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist described the straps as “heavy duty material straps with combination locks on.”

So it is possible to imagine why an officer, primed to look out for “lock-on” devices, would think the straps, still in their packaging, might look suspicious. But Smith said he bought them on Amazon, and they were yellow to match the branding of his group.

Twist insisted that the arrests were lawful as his officers had “reasonable grounds” to suspect the offence of “going equipped for locking on”.

But in the end that will be for the courts to decide - if Republic decides to sue the police for wrongful arrest.

It will be for the politicians and the police to work out how to use the new law of “going equipped for locking on” without innocent people spending hours in police cells for carrying things like bike locks without any intention of using them for locking on in a disruptive protest.

Brandon Livesay
Live reporter

Well that was a fascinating - and at times fiery - session at the Home Affairs Select Committee.

It almost seemed like fate that a hearing about protests would be interrupted by protesters.

Members from Just Stop Oil were not exactly covert, they had T-shirts with large slogans and sat directly behind the witnesses. The hearing video feed cut out briefly when the group interrupted.

But there were plenty of other talking points both before and after that moment.

Here’s what we learned at today’s examination of the police’s treatment of anti-monarchy protesters at King Charles’ Coronation 11 days ago.

• Matt Twist from the Metropolitan Police said there was no political pressure before the arrests were made
• Twist added that police had intelligence there would be major disruptions at the Coronation
• Graham Smith, said the straps his Republic organisation were arrested over were incapable of “locking on” to objects
• Night Stars volunteer Suzie Melvin's testimony of how she was arrested left the Committee chair “speechless”
• Melvin also told the hearing she was in police custody from Friday night until Saturday afternoon

MPs have finished questioning the witnesses and the proceedings have come to an end.

Dame Diana Johnson has thanked them for coming and explaining what happened, especially Graham Smith and Suzie Melvin.

We’re back with legal expert Adam Wagner now, who is talking about previous Just Stop Oil protests.

He tells the committee he doesn’t know the facts of those cases and couldn’t comment on if they were treated fairly.

Wagner says comparing Just Stop Oil protests with Republic’s Coronation arrests is tricky.

He says every event should be policed “to that event” but essentially, there was no reason the Coronation should be handled differently to when protesters blocked Westminster Bridge.

Suzie Melvin from the Night Star volunteers is asked if she had any dialogue with the police beforehand about the new laws and what it might mean for her operations.

"Not directly no," she says, "but I am aware that city council members did have a dialogue and were not made aware of any suggestion we might be involved in plans to disrupt the Coronation."

MP Simon Fell asks Graham Smith for clarity about the level of detail Republic got into with police when they were informing them of their intention to protest on the day of the Coronation.

Smith says some of the “smaller minutiae of the logistics might not have been communicated” because they had established a good relationship with the police, who knew they were going to be transporting 600 placards.

He adds that they only decided to use the luggage straps late in the day because they only received the placards late in the day and then realised they would be needed.

Smith says it shouldn’t have been that difficult for police to engage with protesters on the day and continue the dialogue that had been built up over months.

He believes police were expecting a transit van to come in and start unloading and reiterates that the van wasn’t in the restricted area of central London.

A little earlier the committee examining the arrests of republicans on Coronation Day was interrupted by Just Stop Oil protesters.

Conservative MP Tim Loughton groaned as a man in the gallery tried to talk over him and live coverage from the room was cut.

When the meeting restarted, he said the protester was "trying to undermine" the activities of the Home Affairs Committee.

MP Marco Longhi asks Suzie Melvin if she thinks her arrest was a mistake or malicious.

Melvin says that when she was arrested, the police officer told her they were specifically looking for the Night Stars volunteers.

Longhi asks if it could be because they were giving out rape alarms, "which can cause a sudden occurrence to happen amongst the horses that were parading" and a risk to the public.

"None of us have ever handed out a rape alarm," says Melvin. "I am not sure why we were arrested and detained."

Graham Smith is speaking again on his belief the arrests had political motivation.

He says Republic had its own welfare officer and did an internal risk assessment.

Police could have asked them who they were and inquired about the straps without any arrests being made, Smith argues.

He goes on to claim the police action had “all the hallmarks” of being predetermined.

MP Carolyn Harris asks Suzie Melvin if what happened has put her off volunteering for the Night Star organisation, which helps people in vulnerable situations in central London.

"It hasn't put me off personally," says Melvin, "but I can see why it would put some people off... if you could be arrested and detained in the course of carrying out your volunteering."

Harris asks if - on Coronation Day - Melvin encountered any police officers she already knew from her work in Soho. Melvin says no, they were police from another area.

MP Carolyn Harris asks barrister Adam Wagner whether what happened on the day of the Coronation is going to stop what she describes as “passive protest”.

Wagner says that protest is about getting yourself heard, particularly by people in power but also by fellow citizens.

He thinks the perfect protest movement is a mass protest movement, where you’ve got a lot of people who agree, and that the new law makes these more difficult to organise.

He adds that the genesis of the orders of the new law were created with the climate group Extinction Rebellion in mind – a group he describes as being, for the most part, peaceful and creative.

Wagner says we should be encouraging this in society and that a good democracy recognises that protest is a release of pressure

He adds that the idea that you can’t bring a loud speaker to a political protest is “really worrying” and that we need to “take a check now” as he believes this is the “direction of travel”.

Graham Smith says the Republic (the anti-monarchy organisation he leads) is a group who has a history of peaceful protests.

He says the group did not have the intention to disrupt and they made that clear to the Met and every other police force.

He adds that the police did not express concern about the Republic's plans up until Friday night - on the eve of the Coronation.

"They [police] were abundantly clear that they had absolutely no concerns about any of our plans whatsoever, right up until Friday 5 May."

Graham Smith has denied the notion from MP Tim Loughton that the arrests made his group’s Coronation protest a success.

He says the arrests were a “very heavy price to pay” for increased media coverage and it was not the aim of the day.

Success, Smith says, would have been to hold a peaceful protest, have speeches and make their voices heard. He tells the committee the organisation wanted the world to see not everyone is a royalist.

Smith continued on the topic of media coverage and says he will complain to the BBC about its coverage of his group.

Human rights barrister Adam Wagner says peaceful political protest is a political issue, and that the new legislation turns it into a police issue.

He goes on to say that the problem with the Public Order Act is it's tipping the balance between lawful protest and criminality because it turns what used to be an accepted impact of a protest, disruption, into a crime and all protest becomes a bad thing.

Alison Thewliss, Scottish National Party MP for Glasgow Central asks barrister Adam Wagner if he thinks the Public Order Act will have a chilling effect on public protest.

Wagner says that is has already had a chilling effect and it’s only been in force for just over a week.

He adds that the main issue is that the law is very broad, especially when it relates to locking-on.

According to Wagner, being arrested for a “gateway offence”, such as having materials that could be used to lock on, then allows police to arrest and detain if they believe an offence is going to be committed and use suspicion of search tactics that have previously been used to deal with violent crime.

He says the vast majority of protesters or people who attend public events aren’t radical and don’t want to get “caught in the dragnet” of the law and risk their jobs, even if they believe in the cause.

However, he believes the new legislation as it is will end up radicalising people.

Image source, UK Parliament

We're now hearing from Suzie Melvin, who volunteers for the Night Stars organisation and was arrested during the Coronation weekend.

She explains to the select committee the work volunteers do and the equipment they use - mostly items to help people struggling to get home during a night out, from sick bags to flip flops.

She describes the night as quiet, with the volunteering team mainly helping people by directing them to taxis in central London.

But as the team - wearing hi-vis jackets and backpacks - approached Soho Square they were told by officers they would need to be stopped and searched.

Melvin says officers looked through their bags. But despite explaining to officers who they were, they were arrested and taken to police custody - where she was held from Friday night until Saturday afternoon.

"I am speechless," the chair of the committee Diana Johnson says after hearing Melvin's testimony.

Asked if anyone had seen the luggage straps, Graham Smith says they were still inside the van.

He adds they were detained before officers had seen any luggage straps.

Graham Smith says the straps he bought on Amazon were not “physically capable” of locking people on.

He said there were combination locks but also an adjuster like a regular bag strap, and the material would be easy to cut through.

The chief executive of Republic likened the straps to something you would strap around your luggage at an airport.

Smith then said he felt police turned up specifically to detain his protest group.

Police confiscated their amplifiers, threatened to arrest people with megaphones, and police activity meant many protesters didn’t even bother to show up, Smith claims.