Like Joyce Edmund-Smith (Letters April 22), I see the police, far from protecting people’s right to peaceful protest, as encouraging the opposite by treating non- violent demonstrators worse than those who break the law.

Stuart Bower, ex-police officer, (also Letters April 22), blames senior police officers who send constables out on long shifts with little sleep to face dangerous adversaries. Of course the police face trouble in their job and, like any professional organisation, senior officers have a duty to ensure staff are not sent out unfit for duty and do not work more hours than is safe for themselves or the public.

It is hoped any investigation will not be confined to individual officers but will look at the instructions given to those officers by senior police and the Home Office.

It may then provide the reason why, on April 1, climate change protesters holding workshops and waving banners were attacked, while those seeking to break into banks were, in spite of the heavy police presence, allowed to do so. Cowardice, attacking those who posed the least threat, or policy, allowing lawbreaking to take place to justify the extreme numbers of riot police and the violence they used?

Whatever the policy, whatever the instructions from above, however tired, stressed and overworked, please tell me most policemen would be incapable of hitting a woman in the face, of attacking unarmed and unthreatening people with weapons, of pushing a man to the ground as he was walking away.

Most protesters in the past – whether Chartists, Suffragettes or those against apartheid or the Vietnam war – were seen as extremists for promoting what later came to be the accepted view. The Government should not use the police to attack climate change protesters but listen to what they are saying – now rather than later.

Barbara Richardson
The Broyle, Ringmer