Airwave failures left riot officers 'directionless'

A highly critical leaked report has said failings of the Airwave digital radio network together with equipment shortages led to officers being forced to use their own mobile phones in chaotic scenes during the summer riots.

The Police Federation review, leaked to the Observer, reveals that the Police National Information Co-ordination Centre, the body set up to co-ordinate the response to a national emergency, was ineffective for the "first 48 hours of the disturbance". During that period the violence spread from London across the country.

According to the official assessment of the riots from the viewpoint of the rank-and-file police, they felt that severe communication failures due to chronic problems with the hi-tech digital Airwave radio network, particularly in London, had left some officers "directionless".

Communications failings were one reason, the report says, why officers were "always approximately half an hour behind the rioters". This partly explained, it said, why officers kept arriving at areas from where the disorder had moved on.

Frontline police had to use their own mobile phones during the August riots, after the official radio system collapsed and some forces lost control of the situation to the extent that they had no idea how many officers were on duty, according to an internal investigation into the response to the disorder.

The federation wants a review into why the multibillion-pound radio communication system used by the police and other emergency services collapsed, leaving officers to rely on their own phones. "Officers on the ground and in command resorted, in the majority, to the use of personal mobile phones to co-ordinate a response," says the report.

The Airwave network was supposed to improve the way emergency services in London responded to a crisis after damning criticism for communication failures following the 7 July bombings in 2005. In March the Home Office announced it was making a £39m investment in Airwave to increase the capability of the system in time for the 2012 Games.

The findings have been submitted to the ongoing review into public order policing, which was announced in the aftermath of the riots.