'It would've been the most horrendous incident!': Met representative defends Coronation arrests

7 May 2023, 16:04 | Updated: 7 May 2023, 16:07

Police officer calls into set the record straight..

Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation Ken Marsh called into the Andrew Castle show to defend police action, following criticism of protesters arrested during the Coronation procession on Saturday.

Ken Marsh, Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation called into Andrew Castle's show, saying: "I want to correct a few things."

He began by offering a hypothetical scenario to Andrew which detailed one hundred people 'pulling the pin on rape alarms as horses rode past them'. This was mentioned as the Met police arrested volunteers handing out rape alarms at 2 am on Saturday morning, ahead of the Coronation.

He contextualized the situation: "We as the police have hundreds of incidents brought to us prior to this event which was one of the biggest events in the world...and work out how to keep people safe."

With reference to the scenario, he said: "I can assure you that would have been the most horrendous incident you would've seen in London."

He continued: "You cannot stop a ton of meat when it decides it's going to go where you don't want it to."

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Mr Marsh then hit out at previous callers who had criticised the police action: "Imagine one hundred of them doing that, so these individuals coming on here saying they're saying...good God."

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Andrew asked: "Do we have any evidence that rape alarms were actually going to be used for the purpose of literally scaring the horses?"

Mr Marsh replied: "I'm not going to go into details about what our intelligence is but I can assure you that we had numerous streams of intelligence brought to us."

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"The public doesn't know about ninety-nine per cent of what we do and how we do it."

He stated: "Trust me when I say were that to have unfolded, you would have seen the biggest catastrophe going on the best day of our lives," concluding: "God willing that didn't happen".

Dozens of protestors were arrested during the King's coronation including the leader of a prominent anti-monarchy group, Republic.