A DISTINGUISHED barrister has called on Theresa May to ban “left-wing” marches in Piccadilly after damage to the Ritz at anti-cuts protests earlier this year.

John Beveridge QC (pictured) co-founder and chairman of amenity group the St James’s Conservation Trust, said such marches attracted “ragtag” protesters who “become violent and urinate all over the place”.

He added: “I have written to the Home Secretary, who has responded in the usual pusillanimous and ambiguous way, that these marches should be sent on routes that don’t take them past Fortnum and Mason and Cartier and the Ritz, that pass ordinary shops that won’t so inflame them. There’s no fun for them in attacking Safeway or Costcutter, but they love beating up the Ritz. 

“The Home Secretary should have a bit more political guts and say that this type of march must be diverted elsewhere.” 

Political marches have long progressed down Embankment, up Whitehall and along Piccadilly to end at Hyde Park, but Mr Beveridge, 73, said the visible wealth in some areas of central London made vandalism more likely.

Speaking to the West End Extra from his apartment in St James’s, his London residence of more than 30 years, Mr Beveridge said: “I think it breaks down to two types. 

“There is sometimes a body of perfectly decent people who feel so strongly about their cause and are so indignant about what they see as wrongs that they will indulge in violence. 

“That wrong conduct is not excusable but is perhaps more understandable. Then there is the fringe element, the Socialist Workers Party and the various anarchist movements who actually espouse violence as a political cause.”  

A recorder of the Crown Court, Western Circuit, from 1975 to 1995, Mr Beveridge said it was “common sense” to restrict marches to Whitehall and other streets which he said could be more easily protected by the police.

Asked if he was concerned such restrictions might infringe on some democratic rights, he said he “couldn’t care less”.

St James’s Conservation Trust was founded in 1998 to preserve historic buildings in the exclusive enclave of the West End.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The policing of demonstrations is an operational matter for the police. 

The police have powers in the Public Order Act 1986 to put ­conditions on demonstrations to manage risks of serious public disorder, serious disruption to the life of the community and serious damage to property.” 

These could include location and duration.

Published: 22 July 2011
by JOSH LOEB