Protection, or ethnic profiling of travellers?

Were police protecting Manchester city centre or was this a case of heavy-handed policing and the profiling of a whole community? John Scheerhout examines a complex row sparked by travellers attempting to visit the Christmas markets on Saturday afternoon.

- John Scheerhout

THE DISTURBING sight of young people from traveller communities up and down the country – many of them children – being herded onto trains by police at Manchester Victoria railway station on Saturday has prompted anger, consternation and concern.

The obvious upset, however, isn’t confined to people from those traveller communities.

The question being privately asked of Greater Manchester Police bosses by the Mayor’s Office is whether it was really proportionate to use a so-called ‘section 34’ order to cover the whole of Manchester city centre. For some, it is an indiscriminate, blunt weapon that risks collateral damage.

The order, made under the AntiSocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, allows police to turn people away from a specified geographical area if they think there might be trouble – and arrest those who refuse.

The M.E.N. understands senior officers were well aware they might well attract some public flak, but they sanctioned the order to prevent a repeat of trouble from previous years.