Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch

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Mounted Met police officer outside Buckingham Palace.

The Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch is the mounted police branch of London's Metropolitan Police. It is part of Met Operations.

History[]

The London Bow Street Horse Patrol was formed in 1758. Mounted police patrols increased in the late 1830s. Percy Laurie, a retired British Army officer, established the mounted police unit of the modern Metropolitan Police in 1918.[1]

Operations[]

Figures released by the Met under a Freedom of Information Act request showed that the annual number of police horses in the MPS Mounted Branch Unit in calendar years 2009 to 2018 ranged from a low of 100 to a high of 116.[2] As of 2016, the annual average cost incurred by the police force was £5,558 per horse, not including stabling, and there were 142 police officers qualified to ride.[3] The total budget for the mounted unit was £9,969,736 in 2018.[2] The police horses used are typically either half thoroughbred and half draft breed, or three-quarters thoroughbred and one-quarter draft breed.[1]

The police horses are used for patrols of London's main parks; for ceremonial events; and for crowd control at events such as football matches.[4][5][6] A 2014 RAND Europe/University of Oxford Centre for Criminology study found: "While mounted police in the UK are traditionally thought of as public-order policing resources, deployment data show that they spend between 60-70 per cent of their time in local area patrols, and 10-20 per cent of their time in public order work, with the remainder spent in activities such as ceremonial deployments."[5] A typical daily patrol is 9–10 miles, but a police horse escort of the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery from its St John's Wood barracks to central London is 16 miles.[6]

The Branch has eight stables:[6][7] Hyde Park,[4][7] Lewisham Police Station,[7][8] Great Scotland Yard,[7] Hammersmith,[7] West Hampstead,[7] Bow Road,[7] Kings Cross,[7] and Imber Court in East Molesey, Surrey.[7][1] The horses are trained at the latter site.[1][6]

The City of London Police, which is separate from the Met Police, also maintains a mounted unit.[5]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d Mounted Police, Equus (January 13, 2003).
  2. ^ a b Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.19.002021: Information about MPS dogs and horses, Metropolitan Police Service.
  3. ^ Andrew Dismore (2016). "Questions to the Mayor: Police horses (Reference No. 2016/2126)". London Assembly.
  4. ^ a b Police horses back on beat as Hyde Park stables re-open, Evening Standard (April 27, 2010).
  5. ^ a b c Chris Giacomantonio, Ben Bradford, Matthew Davies & Richard Martin, Assessing the Value of Mounted Police Units in the UK, RAND Europe (2014).
  6. ^ a b c d Jill Insley, A working life: the mounted police officer, The Guardian (December 9, 2011).
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i MPS Stables - Supply & Delivery Of Feed, Forage & Bedding (18 December 2019).
  8. ^ Sarah Trotter, Meet the horses at Lewisham Police Station, News Hopper (January 30, 2014).
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