UNITED KINGDOM: Home Secretary Theresa May joins other officials in declaring London ready to host a "safe and secure" Olympic Games this month, despite an embarrassing fiasco over security staffing

Record ID: 330877

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Home Secretary Theresa May joins other officials in declaring London ready to host a "safe and secure" Olympic Games this month, despite an embarrassing fiasco over security staffing
  • Date: 16th July 2012
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JULY 16, 2012) (REUTERS) VIEW OF BRIEFING AT LONDON MEDIA CENTRE PEOPLE SITTING ON STAGE INCLUDING (FAR LEFT OF SCREEN) LONDON MAYOR BORIS JOHNSON (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHRIS ALLISON, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER METROPOLITAN POLICE, SAYING; "I think it's important to stress that security isn't going to be delivered by one person, or one organisation. As I've said before, it's a group of people all coming together. As you have heard, although there is a shortfall in G4S the military have increased the number of military personnel they're going to deploy, we are deploying additional officers at the current time to assist in the venue security plan. So the plan is exactly the same as it was, it's just being delivered by some slightly different people. I am very confident in the plan, I have actually been through the search regime this morning as we went to do the previous press conference. I went through it, it could be everything that I could possibly have wanted. It was there, it was smart, it was professional, it was doing the job, so yes, I have confidence that the right levels of safety and security will be here during Games time." LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JULY 16, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ROYAL MARINES ARRIVING AT GREENWICH PARK OLYMPIC VENUE
  • Embargoed: 31st July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA8TI88FU85UE36VCCEV2ZRIIXD
  • Story Text: The first wave of Olympic athletes and visitors began pouring into Britain on Monday (July 16) and officials played down fears that a packed London would buckle under the pressure of its biggest peacetime security and transport operation.
    An embarrassing shortage of security guards, fears over airport queues and questions about the capital's creaking transport system have overshadowed preparations for the Games.
    Extra soldiers were drafted in to help police the Games after private security firm G4S said it had run out of time to train all its newly recruited staff.
    Less than two weeks before the opening ceremony on July 27, Home Secretary Theresa May was summoned to the House of Commons to face an urgent question on Olympic security from the Labour opposition. She insisted the government had acted appropriately and immediately.

    "G4S assured LOCOG and the government continuously that they would be able to deliver their contractual obligations. But on Wednesday, 11th of July, following the difficulties with scheduling which the company has acknowledged, G4S notified LOCOG and the government that they would not be able to supply the numbers of security personnel specified in their contract. I want to be clear that this was the first time G4S had admitted to any minister that they would not be able to deliver the numbers of security personnel that they had promised. We acted immediately to make further contingency arrangements by agreeing the deployment of 3,500 further troops," May told the Commons.
    She added that the increase brought the total military contribution to the Games to 17,000 personnel.

    "G4S have failed to deliver their contractual obligations, but we have the finest military personnel in the world, troops who are willing, ready and able to step in when their country calls, and we can be sure of their professionalism in helping to deliver a secure and safe Olympic Games," said May, to cheers from the government benches.
    Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said "everyone wants the Games to be an outstanding success, and after the G4S shambles we now need things back on track, and the Home Secretary needs to show that she is sorting it out."
    The security fiasco dominated the headlines over the weekend and raised fears that Britain would struggle to cope with the Games.
    As well as the additional troops, more police officers have also been drafted in to fill the gap left by G4S.

    "I think it's important to stress that security isn't going to be delivered by one person, or one organisation... it's a group of people all coming together," Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan police Chris Allison told reporters from around the world on Monday.

    "Although there is a shortfall in G4S the military have increased the number of military personnel they're going to deploy, we are deploying additional officers at the current time to assist in the venue security plan. So the plan is exactly the same as it was, it's just being delivered by some slightly different people," said Allison.
    He added that he was "very confident in the plan", and "that the right levels of safety and security will be here during Games time."
    Over 12,500 police will be on Olympics duty each day, backed up by soldiers, fighter jets and missile batteries on the top of apartment blocks near the Olympics site in east London.
    Security chiefs said they had prepared for threats on the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Four British Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people on three trains and a bus in London on the day after the city was awarded the Games in July 2005.
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