I SEE the police are getting stick for supposedly over-reacting at the G20 demonstrations (Letters, April 22).

Many years ago, when in the British Army, I was in an unhappy country which was putting on a lot of G20 demonstrations and our job was to democratically control them.

A percentage of the demonstrators always turned up for the violent side of it to have “a good day out” causing mayhem the same as in the make-up of the G20 demos. About 100 soldiers armed with batons trying to resist an out-of-hand mob of 10,000 was frightening. Our orders were to use sufficient force to overcome force and with the mob it meant you often had to get very determined and rough or you were going to go down.

At the day’s end there were inevitable injuries. It was not the soldiers or police overreacting, it was a percentage of the mob bent on violence – and that included women.

T S James
Sackville Road, Hove