I wish to respond to two letters (August 17) questioning the policing of the demonstration by Smash EDO protesters on Saturday.

First of all, I would like to state there were no police officers from the Metropolitan Police in attendance. All officers were from Sussex Police.

Secondly, at no time were Sussex Police contacted by organisers of the demonstration to inform us of their intention on the day.

Officers discovered basic details of the day's events on the Smash EDO web site, which asked supporters to "Come along to Churchill Square at 12 to show support for the campaign to close down Brighton's warmongers EDO/MBM. There will be a rally and march in our city centre to kick off the Peace Camp."

Despite numerous attempts in the days leading up to the event, organisers failed to inform us of their intentions with regards to the march through the city.

Due to non co-operation, we resorted to making a plea for organisers to contact us last week via The Argus so that we could discover these intentions and mutually agree a suitable route. Again, organisers were deliberately evasive and failed to contact us to discuss this matter.

The result was massive disruption to the city centre caused by a selfish few who took it upon themselves to march down the middle of one of the busiest streets in the city centre, bringing traffic to a standstill.

My role on the day was twofold: to facilitate peaceful, lawful protest and to ensure the safety of members of the public.

We have always said we are happy to facilitate and assist those who wish to make peaceful protests but, in my view, it is clear from the lack of co-operation this was never on this group's agenda.

I would say to both complainants who wrote in that, had organisers talked to police beforehand, a route for the march could have been negotiated and the disruption caused to the rest of the city could well have been avoided.

Yet again, we have seen the same individuals attending such protests. They seem to believe they should be allowed to act unlawfully and the police should stand back and take no action to prevent this.

I stress, we will continue to police such events fairly but robustly by implementing the law when we need to. People who wish to demonstrate sensibly, peacefully and within the law have nothing to fear from the police.

-Superintendent Kevin Moore, Brighton and Hove Police