Police should have greater powers to force menacing protesters to remove their masks, a group of MPs has demanded.
Tory MPs say they came under verbal and physical attack from protesters wearing masks during their party’s summit in Manchester last year.
Under current laws, police have to get written permission from a senior officer to force someone to take off their mask.
The proposed amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill would allow officers to demand someone takes off their face covering if they believe an offence is being committed.
Conservative MP Sir Edward Garnier, a former solicitor general who tabled the amendment, said: “People who attend demonstrations wearing a balaclava, wearing face coverings, are not doing it simply to avoid their identity being discovered
“A demonstration at which unlawful activity is going on and the police are able to film it, or there are local authority CCTV cameras covering it, there is no better way of avoiding detection, or avoiding being caught, than by disguising your face because essentially in most criminal cases the identity of the perpetrator is fairly central to the prosecution case.
Watch: Protesters heckle Tory delegates
“They were wearing these silk stockings or even tights and therefore nylons over their faces in order to prevent their being discovered.
“And the same thing I suspect goes for people who are intent upon pretty unattractive behaviour in the streets here in London, in Manchester at last year’s Conservative Party conference where people in masks spat at delegates going into the conference hall.”
Conservatives in Manchester
At least 50 protesters were arrested when the Million Mask March in London last November - organised by the hacktivist group Anonymous - turned violent.
Sir Edward said: “These events are happening, people are being terrified, people are being inhibited from going about their lawful business in the countryside and in urban areas.”
The amendment is backed by several Tory backbenchers and one Labour MP.
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One of them, Tory Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said in some cases getting someone to remove their mask can defuse a situation that may otherwise escalate.
The Cotswolds MP raised two examples: “One was the Conservative Party conference in Manchester and the other one was an incident in my constituency where two people in masks in the badger cull deliberately parked outside a farmhouse as it was getting dark for several evenings in a row, deliberately intending to intimidate.
Watch: Conservative Party delegate hit by egg during Manchester protest
“And the (Manchester) conference the same thing - I was there when particularly women were being intimidated by people in masks and if only the police had been able to ask those people to take off the masks, I think the intimidation would have almost stopped there and then on the spot.
“And I suspect in those two incidents, just the mere act of the constable on duty asking those people to take the masks off would have actually stopped the mischief there and then.”
