Police are to use drones at the Notting Hill Carnival for the first time to try to keep attendees safe as some two million people descend on west London for the annual event.
Organisers say 7,000 officers and staff will be on site today and tomorrow with live facial recognition cameras and screening arches to detect weapons at the busiest entry points.
If follows police warnings that the sheer volume of people in such a small residential area could cause ‘a mass casualty event’.
And the family of a young mother attacked in front of police last year called the event ‘unmanageable’ and said it should be moved to a safer location.
Cher Maximen, 32, was stabbed in front of her three-year-old daughter on the carnival’s family day in an unprovoked attack after she was caught up in a street fight. She later died in hospital.
Her cousin Lawrence Hoo warned that such an incident could easily happen again because the annual celebration is ‘unsafe in its current format’.
‘She was in the safest location possible on family day with her daughter and she was murdered directly in front of police officers, so if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere,’ he told Sky News. ‘In all honesty, it’s an unmanageable event.’
The three-day carnival has seen increasing levels of violence in recent years, with part of the blame falling on high crowd density and inadequate stewarding.
The Metropolitan Police said yesterday that it had already arrested 100 people and taken dozens of weapons off the streets as part of an operation to deter those who pose the greatest risk to public safety at this year’s event.
The drones will be operated by a dedicated team from British Transport Police.
The use of facial recognition cameras at the carnival has been controversial, with 11 civil liberty and campaign groups claiming it to be subject to ‘racial bias’ and calling for it to be dropped.
But Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley defended the choice, referencing the minority of carnivalgoers who ‘have used the event to commit serious crimes’.
Responding to calls for the event to be moved to a new space, the carnival’s chief executive Matthew Phillip said: ‘We’ve put a lot of measures in place, as we always do, but even more so this year, to keep people safe. Carnival is a safe space, it’s no more unsafe than the rest of London. So I would say come and be respectful.’
