Posted: Thu 22nd Sep 2016

Bubble Match Review FOI: Commissioner Says ‘Police Have Clubs Over A Barrel’

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Thursday, Sep 22nd, 2016

This weekend sees Chester fans making the short trip down the A483 to watch their team lose at the Racecourse. We take a look at the Merseyside police review into the ‘bubble’ tactics deployed by North Wales and Cheshire police.

After his recent election win the now Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) Arfon Jones met with North Wales Police’s Deputy Chief Constable Gareth Pritchard to discuss the so called ‘bubble’ or safe transport arrangements.

The outcome, alongside Cheshire Police and their PCC, was a peer review into the arrangements conducted by Merseyside Police.

The review documents and summary documents were not made public, so Wrexham.com placed a Freedom of Information request to gain access. This week, after an extra 20 days to consider the public interest implications, North Wales Police and Cheshire Police released redacted documents.

The report sets out the fixture in grim terms, saying it is a ‘top 10 risk fixture nationally’, and is ‘extremely high profile’ and can ‘pose a risk to attending supporters’. Although redacted, comments from PCC Arfon Jones indicates the report also says without the bubble there would be ‘risk of serious injury’.

The summary gives the view from the review team in Merseyside that a bubble or safe transport option has ‘prevented the significant problems that have occurred in the past’.

bubble-match

The report concludes by suggesting a further review is taken place by stakeholders such as the clubs and police forces to develop a plan to ‘normalise the kick off time’ and then ‘develop a staged approach to scale back the safer transport tactic’.

The report has 17 (or 18 depending which document you read) recommendations, with all but five redacted from public view. We asked Mr Jones as someone who has seen all the recommendations, did he think the secret ones would help removing the so called bubble in the long term?

Mr Jones said: “Yes I think some of the redacted recommendations will help to remove bubble restrictions as they will result in more Football Banning Orders and therefore a reduction in the hooligan element.”

We asked Mr Jones as someone opposed to the bubble, so far as making it part of his manifesto for election, how he would argue against the reports view it is a ‘proportionate, necessary and justifiable response to the continuous threat of violence and disorder likely to be directed at visiting supporters and the likely disruption to the community as a whole’?

“It is difficult to argue against the report especially when one of the net results of not using the bubble is ‘risk of serious injury’. The main argument against the bubble is the ability of other Police forces to police the other 9 top risk fixtures without resorting to the bubble. I can only seek to influence as this is an ‘operational issue’.”

bubble-match-riot

Sticking the responsibility of the bubble implementation on one party is hard, with the police, Safety Advisory Groups (SAG) or the clubs all inputting to the non-public process. We asked what would happen if the clubs say they do not need a bubble/safe transport, and the police say they do?

Mr Jones told us: “In my view if the clubs were to turn round to the Police and say they didn’t want the bubble then the Police would say they wouldn’t police the game the game would be cancelled and the clubs would be fined by the Conference. The Police have the clubs over a barrel, they are between a rock and a hard place.”

The report is light on information over football banning orders or prosecutions, so we asked Mr Jones if he felt that should have been an area reviewed as it covers the outcomes and options in place for enforcement. It was confirmed that they are mentioned, but redacted.

We asked if he thought Wrexham and Chester as football clubs could do more to help counter the ‘risk’ factor, and if so, what? He replied citing West Ham as an example: “The two clubs could do more to address the risk factor, they do not need Football Banning Orders, the club could ban fans with no Football Banning Orders.”

The report cites the review considered documentary evidence “going back to the 1980’s” on the fixture. Mr Jones commented: “We shouldn’t be policing this match based on violence in the 1980’s as football violence is much reduced. When Chester got back to the Conference in 2013 there was no opportunity given to policing the match in a traditional manner it just went straight to the bubble.

“We must remember it’s a Conference game (Step 5) with a max of 6,000 fans, compare that to Villa v Birmingham (Step 2) or Blackburn v Burnley.”

The review team spoke with members of North Wales and Cheshire Police forces, as well as other stakeholders. It appears direct discussion with the two clubs involved was quite light, with the review team not able to find a Chester supporters group to speak to.

Generously though they did refer to Wrexham as being a city.

The feedback from Wrexham came from the Ground Safety Officer and Peter Jones from the Wrexham Supporters Trust who own the football club.

The report states: “Mr Jones provided feedback that the ‘Safe Transport’ tactic both to and from the Wrexham and Chester football matches works well. He did indicate that he receives complaints from supporters of Wrexham who state that the safe travel removes freedom of choice and can be an inconvenience for the supporters.

“It is clear that there is divided opinion between those who support the idea and those who are against it.

“Like all we have spoken to, he would like to see a move away from having to utilise ‘Safe Transport’ but again, in common with the club officials and SAG members we have spoken to, accepts it may not be possible in the short term.

“Positively he did state that he is happy with the style of policing of the home supporters at Wrexham and has seen an improvement of the policing style when Wrexham visit Chester.”

There appears to be generalised comment from Chester’s Ground Safety Officer, but nothing from fans, the report states: “Chester do not have an active supporters group”, despite Chester being owned by a group of supporters (Chester Fans United), much like Wrexham are.

Recommendation number 11 states Cheshire Police should work with Chester FC to look at the feasibility to setting up a ‘supporters club’, we asked if this affected any confidence in the report itself.

Mr Jones said: “Recommendation 11 is wrong, Chester FC do have a supporters association and therefore does raise questions around confidence in this report, not only have the Merseyside Review team not spoke to any Chester fans it seems they did not know of their supporters groups.

“There should have been much more consultation with fans there should have been a focus group of both Wrexham and Chester fans and not officials of the clubs and WST (Wrexham Supporters Trust) owners.”

bubble-riot-fans-leaving

The report gives the views of both Ground Safety Officers from Wrexham and Chester, “The Ground Safety Officers (GSO) from both clubs were very complimentary about the police operation”.

However in a possible peak behind the blacked out sections Mr Jones said: “As regards the GSO’s and Stewarding I think the relationship between the GSO and Commanders is good but I am not sure if the stewards feel sufficiently supported by Police when dealing with hooligan elements” adding, “there is no justification for this to be redacted in my opinion.”

Mr Jones told us: “I have spoken to Geraint Parry, Secretary of Wrexham AFC, and he asked me for the report and I was surprised that he hadn’t had a copy especially as the Police will point out that agreement of Policing tactics requires the consent of the club within the ‘footprint of the ground’ Why then have the club not had the report or at least the recommendations?”

As someone who has seen many of the un-redacted documents we asked the Commissioner if he felt the parts hidden were reasonable.

Mr Jones: “I am unclear of who made the redactions and under what FOI exemptions but the redactions seem to be extensive and unjustified having compared it with un-redacted version. The redactions go well beyond ‘Police Tactics’ exemption.”

He added: “My thoughts on the redactions is that they are unjustified and unwarranted my expectation was that this report would be public, there is nothing in this report that warrants redactions on this scale; police tactics at football matches are well known.

“I believe that the Information Commissioner would take a dim view of the redactions and would uphold an appeal to either publish the report in its entirety or with very few redactions.”

North Wales Police and Cheshire Police have been helpful in the replies to our FOI, whereas we are still following up with Merseyside Police who replied to a non-existent ‘Mr Irving’ asking for clarification on the exact same request that was understood by the other two forces.

The two documents released via FOI are below:

PDF: Review of the Policing of Fixtures Between Chester and Wrexham

PDF: Summary of Review of the Policing of Fixtures Between Chester and Wrexham



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