Certain units of the Army are deployed in plain clothes and under the command of the Met Police. Although there not really there for mob/crowd control.firlandsfarm wrote: ↑Tue Jun 23, 2020 5:04 pmI agree Archery but the sensationalist media would have a field day with "Army on the streets of Britain"!Archery1969 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 23, 2020 3:16 pmWe have around 82,000 soldiers minus 30% currently on active deployment available to help out. Obviously not carrying an SA80 or bayonet.
A bit of history.....
There was allot of speculation back in 2005 over the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting on a tube train. Turns out he was totally innocent.
- At the time, Professor Michael Clarke, Professor of Defence Studies at King's College London, went as far as to say that unless there had been a major change in policy it was likely that it was not the police who had carried out the shooting, but special forces:
- On 4 August 2005, The Guardian reported that the newly created Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), a special forces unit specialising in covert surveillance, were involved in the operation that led to the shooting.
- An anonymous Whitehall source who provided the story stressed that the SRR were involved only in intelligence gathering, and that Menezes was shot by armed police not by members of the SRR or other soldiers.
- Defence sources would not comment on speculation that SRR soldiers were among the plainclothes officers who followed Menezes onto the No. 2 bus.
- On 21 August, the Sunday Herald reported that SRR men are believed to have been in the tube train when the shooting occurred.
There was also allot of discussion at the time about what type of bullets were used as his body was unrecognisable.
No Police Officer or Soldier (If they were there) on the tube train as ever been charged and/or prosecuted.
They were given an order and followed it.