The owner of a Wolverhampton-based specialist defence and security sector engineering firm is calling on the Home Secretary to consider the use of special mobile barriers to provide better protection for police officers, innocent bystanders and property during violent protests such as recently in London.
Richard Skan, whose family owns Oldbury UK, says his firm designed and introduced a fully mobile riot control and scene management barrier system over a year ago. The firm already supplies the system to overseas markets including America – but not the UK. Developed originally for defence threats and civil emergencies such as chemical attacks or terrorist incidents, the barrier is also made in an up-armoured version to protect troops from small arms fire.
Skan says: “Any normal, law abiding citizen watching the television pictures last night – or reading the press this morning – will be incensed by the scale of violence and criminal damage that occurred in London yesterday. It is unreasonable to expect police officers to sustain serious injury whilst trying to control protesters, when there is equipment available to the Home Office from British companies that can significantly improve operational tactics and reduce risk. Remarkably, no one was killed during the disturbances in London – but if this is a foretaste of events to come, then British industry has a role to play by providing our police forces on the ground with equipment that gives them and surrounding property an appropriate level of protection.”
