The Metropolitan Police has introduced patrols aimed at keeping women and girls safe at concerts.
The new patrols come ahead of 51 large-scale music events due to take place in London this summer, with more than three million people set to attend shows at Wembley Stadium alone.
The patrols started on 5 June with Beyonce’s concert at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with the operation leading 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.
The patrols have been introduced alongside the V100 project, a new data-driven approach to identify serious sexual offenders and prevent crimes.
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Ben Russell, deputy assistant commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, said 177 of the V100 nominals had already been arrested, and 129 of them have been convicted for a range of serious offences.
“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 crimes.
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“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.”
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The patrols work on both engaging with the public, “helping people to feel safe, and letting them know that if they’ve got concerns, they can come and speak to us”, Mr Russell said.
“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.
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.”
