A demonstration by a pro-Palestine protester, who climbed Big Ben barefoot and sat on the central London landmark for more than 15 hours, cost the British taxpayer £67,000, a court has heard.
Security at the historic site was focused on dealing with the protest, police roadblocks were put in place, and tours were cancelled as a “business as usual” operation to ensure public safety was not possible, Southwark Crown Court was told on Tuesday.
Mattresses were put down at the base of the Elizabeth Tower, commonly known as Big Ben, to try to protect the climber as he was in a “precarious position” at a height, according to Alison Giles, the director of security for Parliament.
Transport for London (TfL) also lost an estimated £25,000 in bus fares as diversions were put in place and routes curtailed, while at one point sympathetic protestors blocked a fire engine as onlookers with Palestine flags cheered, the jury heard.
A little more than 2,500 visits, largely by tourists, to Parliament had to be cancelled while maintenance workers and business pass holders would also have been at the Westminster venue.
Giles said the loss of revenue had been estimated at £67,000, telling the court that “ultimately it is (a cost to) the British taxpayer because those funds are used to offset the running costs of the Houses of Parliament”.
Daniel Day, 30, of Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, denies intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance by climbing the Elizabeth Tower on March 8 last year.
He is accused of scaling the Elizabeth Tower at around 7.20am and refusing to come down until after midnight.
Giles said: “Three minutes after he began his climb, the police appeared on the scene and we began to manage the incident.
“We had to take the decision to stop all visits.
“On a Saturday, we will have thousands of visitors to Parliament.
“All of our security personnel and all the police were very much focused on the security incident. More widely, the police had to close Westminster Bridge, position the fire service and ambulance and manage the incident.
“It was pretty inaccessible, and for security purposes I could not allow visitors onto the estate.”
Prosecutor David Matthew said that “a little over 2,500” visits to Parliament were stopped.
Giles later stated that “in order to safely open the estate to visitors, [we] need to be open as business as usual” and it would have been “absolutely inappropriate” to allow the visits to take place and potentially risk public safety while they were managing a security incident.
She added: “We had a significant number of police officers monitoring the incident.
“We had a person up a tower in a precarious position. This was about safeguarding life.”
“We were managing an ongoing security incident of a man who was elevated in the air. We were very concerned he might fall off the tower. We placed mattresses on the base of the tower to protect him.”
She described it as a “significant incident to manage”, which included the emergency services and a cherry picker with a police negotiator to try and persuade Day to come down.
The court has heard that police blocked off Bridge Street, before shutting down Westminster Bridge, closing traffic and pedestrian access off the Embankment, and closing parts of Parliament Square at times.
Clint Robertson, of TfL, said an estimated £25,000 in bus fares were lost and people “would have avoided the buses because of the disruption”.
Chief Inspector Jonathan Waterfield, who was making tactical decisions for the handling of the incident during the day, was in a control room watching CCTV of the event.
Waterfield, who had spotted the protest at 7.45am as he left Westminster tube station on his way to work, said at first it was “very much spectators” who formed part of the crowd.
By lunchtime, there were people who were “sympathetic” in attendance and “displaying Palestinian flags”, he said.
Waterfield later said the negotiator told him “there were real concerns” about the climber “around the possibility he might slip and the interaction of the crowd who were holding Palestinian flags and that were sympathising with him”.
Waterfield also said: “The person on the tower was shouting to the group who was on Bridge Street, and that did create a fear that he might fall and for the negotiator to resolve the situation.”
Meanwhile, the Met had to move officers to Whitehall from a planned static protest outside the BBC and from another location in east London that was being “targeted” for patrol as a crime hotspot.
Of the fire brigade engine being blocked, Waterfield said: “I think it is one of those things that is hard to believe when you see it play in front of your eyes.”
Officers – who would usually be involved in dealing with 999 calls – were also called away from their local boroughs across the capital to take over from those who were on duty in central London.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.