‘Far fewer violent incidents’ at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival, police say

This year’s Notting Hill Carnival has seen far fewer incidents of serious violence than in recent years, the Metropolitan Police said.

Transcript

00:00This year's Notting Hill Carnival went to plan and the joyful street party was attended

00:07by thousands as colourful costumes, dancing and music filled the streets of West London.

00:16Festival chairman Ian Comfort told the crowd on Sunday he was pleased the carnival was

00:23happening after its future was in jeopardy because of funding challenges and security concerns

00:31earlier this year.

00:33Huge preparations were made to protect the public.

00:37This of course included over 100 arrests before the event even started.

00:44Officers carried out intelligence-led interventions and 21 people were recalled to prison.

00:5111 firearms and more than 40 knives were also seized.

00:56The Metropolitan Police said this year's Notting Hill Carnival saw far fewer incidents of serious

01:03violence than in recent years.

01:06The force said in an update on Monday there had been 423 arrests over the two main days,

01:13including 46 for possession of an offensive weapon.

01:18Scotland Yard added 52 of this year's total arrests were as a result of identifications using

01:25live facial recognition.

01:28Cameras were placed on the approach to and from the event in an effort to spot suspects before

01:36the streets became crowded.

01:38I think this year we've made some major steps in terms of, particularly on crowd safety and the

01:46teams growing.

01:48We have experts in various fields working on the event and we see us developing that and

01:55also some succession planning, bringing younger people in to lead the carnival to the next stage.

02:00Carnival is an organic thing, it always evolves and grows and we need to make sure that the

02:06next generation are armed with the skills and knowledge to be able to run the event safely.

02:11The safety plans that go into Notting Hill Carnival are huge, there's so many layers to it.

02:18We cover a lot of aspects, we've got a lot of partners that put a lot of work into it.

02:24There's so many partners in Carnival that delivers it, it's not just Notting Hill Carnival Ltd.