The Metropolitan police’s own disabled advisers have lodged a formal complaint about the force’s “discriminatory” treatment of disabled protesters during this month’s Extinction Rebellion protests in London.
A joint letter from every member of the Disability Independent Advisory Group (DIAG) to commissioner Cressida Dick says they are “disappointed and angered” by the force’s actions.
They say they believe the force breached the Equality Act by discriminating against disabled protesters.
And they warn that those actions risk causing “irreparable damage” to relations between disabled people and the Metropolitan police, and that the consequences of its actions will “take many years to heal”.
The want Dick to order a full investigation into the force’s decision-making surrounding the policing of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests in relation to Deaf and disabled protestors, and into the actions of individual officers.
