Liberal Democrat research has revealed that the Home Office exaggerated the extent of police injuries at last summer’s Kingsnorth Climate Camp.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker had originally described the £5.9 million police operation as appropriate and proportionate.

Now, in response to a Parliamentary Question by Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice spokesperson David Howarth, Coaker has admitted that, “there were no recorded injuries sustained as a result of direct contact with the protesters.”

From the Telegraph:

“Kent police were criticised for being “heavy handed” and for using aggressive tactics during the Camp for Climate Action protests in August.

Ministers at the time justified the operation, pointing out that 70 officers had been injured in the course of their duties.

But not one of those injuries was sustained in clashes with demonstrators, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The papers, acquired by the Liberal Democrats, show that the 1,500 officers policing the Kingsnorth climate camp near the Medway estuary in Kent suffered only 12 reportable injuries during the protest in August.

The Home Office has now admitted that the protesters had not been responsible for any injuries.

Only four of the 12 reportable injuries involved any contact with the protesters at all.

Instead the injuries reported included “stung on finger by possible wasp”; “officer injured sitting in car”; and “officer succumbed to sun and heat”.

One officer cut his arm on a fence when climbing over it, another cut his finger while mending a car, and one “used leg to open door and next day had pain in lower back”.

Three other officers succumbed to heat exhaustion, three had toothache, six were bitten by insects, and others had diarrhoea, had cut their finger or had headaches.”

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Spokesperson, David Howarth said:

“It beggars belief that Vernon Coaker could defend as proportionate a £5.9m policing operation in which protestors didn’t cause a single injury to police officers.

“The threat posed by environmental direct action is being systematically overblown by both the Government and the police.

“I hope that ministers and the police will now stop trying to portray peaceful protestors as somehow equivalent to terrorists or violent extremists.

“Members of Parliament have been rightly exercised by political policing rearing its ugly head with the arrest of Damien Green. They should be just as concerned when the same tactics appear to be directed at peaceful protestors.

“In light of this new evidence, it has to be asked whether climate campers were so heavily policed because they posed any genuine threat of violence, or because they posed a challenge to government policy?”