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Public Disorder

Those of us in the communities affected give our thanks to the police and the emergency services, but are conscious that if the best deterrent is being caught, the police have a minority of officers trained and able to use riot headgear and equipment. Will the Prime Minister, with the Home Secretary, consider reversing that so that there is a presumption that most police officers are in that position, and can act and intervene? Will he ensure that the full force of the law does not descend only on the hardened 50 per community—the serial criminals—but on the adults with children who were also going into the shops and nicking stuff, and not just the children for whom they are meant to set an example?