Injuries Suffered in London Student Protests
A second day of student protests took place on Wednesday in London and across the country.
Although most of the protests passed peacefully, Whitehall saw a measure of violence once again amongst the 10,000 protesters. In total seven police officers were injured and 15 other people too.
In total 32 arrests were made after violence saw vandalism of buses, bus shelters, windows of buildings and one police van. The violence however paled in comparison to the riots at Millbank, London two weeks ago. This saw the infamous incident during which a fire extinguisher was thrown from a roof at police officers below.
Although protest leaders – from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) – announced the day a great success, they criticised the ‘kettling’ technique used by the police. This kept protesters cordoned off in the freezing November cold for over 6 hours. They also announced more plans to protest at the end of the month against the sharp rise in university tuition fees to £9,000 a year.
The people injured in the protests, both police officers and civilians may be eligible for compensation if they can prove they were innocently injured by a criminal act. The criminal injuries compensation authority (CICA) is a government body which compensates victims of crime.
