'Police fundamentally failled', says Cllr Daniel Jellyman.
Conservative Council Group Leader Cllr Daniel Jellyman has told BBC Radio Stoke's Stuart George & local newspaper Stoke-on-Trent Live that the Police fundamentally failed to maintain order following disruption of a local Conservative event on Friday evening.
The event, attended by local members, councillors and which was due to be attended by Members of Parliament was held at Mirchi in Shelton, to raise funds towards Conservative Police, Fire & Crime Commissoner Ben Adam's re-election fund, ahead of May's elections.
On arrival, attendees were greeted by around 40 pro-palestine protestors who were located on a car park at the front of the venue. Shortly after the event commenced, four men entered the private function room and shouted that those in attendance were 'child murderers'and 'zionists'.
Subsequent CCTV footage was posted on social media website 'X' by one of the protestors who entered the private function and additional CCTV footage showed Police allowing access to the building to protestors.
Cllr Jellyman told Stoke-on-Trent Live: "The police fundamentally failed to maintain public order. It seems like the police had no plan or idea of how to deal with a pre-planned protest which had been called in response to a legal gathering of Conservative politicians.
"We have members both young and old in the room and some were very distressed by the incident. On leaving the restaurant, people had to walk through the protestors and at least one member's car was hit by an egg as they tried to leave.
"The Police initially sent 2 officers to deal with the protestors, which was nowhere near enough and it took another 90 minutes for more officers to attend to deal with the situation. I feel the situation was handled badly; rather than move the protestors off private land onto the public highway, they told attendees at the function to go home. It
"It isn't right that we had to go while there was no effort to disperse the protesters."
Four men, all from Stoke-on-Trent, have since been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass and using threatening or abusive words or behaviour likely to cause alarm harassment or distress. Investigations remain ongoing.
Image Credit: X/luqmann_97
