Met Police introduces patrols to protect women and girls at concerts
It comes ahead of 51 large-scale music events planned in London this summer, with more than three million people set to attend shows at Wembley Stadium alone.
The Met has introduced new violence against women and girls (VAWG) patrols alongside the V100 project, a new data-driven approach to identify serious sexual offenders and prevent crimes.
The operation began on June 5 at US singer Beyonce's concert at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and led to the removal of an individual on suspicion of stalking and threatening behaviour, as well as the arrest of a man for upskirting, who remains on police bail.
Ben Russell, Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, said: 'The V100 is our approach to identifying those men who are at the top end of carrying out the most serious and harmful attacks against women and girls – that's multiple serious sexual assaults.
'Thankfully, there are a relatively small number of offenders who we believe are behind the most serious crime.
'In the short time we've been running this initiative, we've already arrested 177 of our V100 nominals and 129 of them have been convicted for a range of serious offences.
'And this is about identifying through our data the men posing the biggest risk of women and girls in London and taking action in a very targeted, precise way.'
A young fan poses outside Wembley Stadium ahead of a concert (PA)
He added: 'With our VAWG patrols, there's two parts to them: Firstly, it's about engagement, so our officers talk to the public, really engage with them, having conversations, helping people to feel safe, and letting them know that if they've got concerns, they can come and speak to us.
'But the other part to it has a much harder edge, which is looking at the crowd and saying, 'who should not be here?'
'So that will not be so visible to normal concert-goers, but we will approach people we think should not be there and we will make sure they leave venues and leave the areas as quickly as possible.'
An additional 565 officers and staff have been drafted into public protection roles across the force, aimed at enhancing the domestic abuse, rape and sexual offence investigation teams.
The Met has also increased its live facial recognition tools to locate those wanted for offences and those subject to court orders, including sexual harm prevention orders.
Mr Russell added: 'For us and the Met, protecting women and girls has been one of our number one priorities for a while now, and we're working really closely with the Government on that, and we're supportive of the mission to try and halve violence against women and girls, over the life of this parliament.
'Part of the way we look at our success is trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police, so we track on a regular basis how much people feel that they think we're doing a good job, and that's something working with the mayor's office, we track regularly.
'It's also about just getting out and arresting people at these events. We think if we spot people in the crowds who are committing these offences and are making arrests, that's a good result.
'Equally, if we recording and these crimes, that tells us that the public have the faith to come forward with over three million people coming to these events in the summer, we know that some crime will take place, a relatively small amount, but when we're able to track it to identify it, to record it, and arrest suspects, that for us is a good result.'
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