HUNDREDS of soldiers were secretly deployed to London over fears armed officers would walk out if Martyn Blake was convicted.
An emergency contingency plan was drafted as firearms officers in the Met’s MO19 Specialist Firearms Command threatened action.
More than 300 cops had handed in their weapons when Sgt Blake was charged last year.
Sources confirmed many Met gun police planned to hand in their blue tickets.
The Sun can reveal Royal Regiment of Scotland troops and military drivers from the Engineers and Royal Logistics Corp were put on stand-by.
A source said: “There’s a lot of anger among armed officers about how Sgt Blake was treated.”
Ex-Met PC Tony Long said: “It’s unfair to ask officers to carry firearms for public protection and treat them as criminals if they use them.”
The soldiers were due to go on armed patrols in Land Rovers and white vans as they are not trained for police vehicles.
The Home Office asked for help from the Army at the request of the Met Police.
A source said the so-called “presence patrols” were designed to reassure the public.
The emergency plan was codenamed Operation Temperer.
ON my first day as Justice Secretary after the General Election on July 4, I was told about the true scale of the crisis in our jails.
The Tories had left our prisons on the edge of disaster. At any moment, they could have run out of space entirely.
Had that happened, we would have had to shut the front doors to our prisons.
Courts would have cancelled all trials.
The police would have stopped making arrests.
We would have seen the total breakdown of law and order.
I faced this situation because Rishi Sunak was too weak to act when he had the chance.
The Tories liked to talk tough on crime, but they left this country less safe.
In July, I had no choice. To deal with the crisis, we would have to release some offenders from custody a few weeks or months early.
They will now serve the rest of their sentences on licence, monitored by probation officers in the community.
As your Justice Secretary, I will ensure the scenes we witnessed, first in September and again today, can never happen again.
That’s why I am now setting out a long-term plan to end the crisis in our prisons.
I will make sure no government is ever again put in the position we have been forced in to.
That starts by building more jails.
The last Government talked a big game on prison building. But over their 14 years in power, they added just 500 places to our prison capacity.
This Labour Government will build the 14,000 new places the Tories promised but never delivered.
But we must also face the facts. Every year, our prison population grows by 4,500.
To keep pace with that growth, we would have to build HMP Birmingham, the prison in my constituency, nearly five times over, every single year.
The reality is the prison population is rising faster than our ability to lock people up.
There are only so many spaces we can build.
That’s why today I am launching a sentencing review to end the crisis in our prisons and to keep the public safe.
This review will make sure our prison system works — that there is always space in our jails for dangerous offenders and that prisons are not so full that they are simply a breeding ground for more crime.
Firstly, to keep people safe, we must lock up the most serious criminals.
Secondly, if we want to really cut crime, we must encourage offenders to turn their backs on crime.
We must look at what more can be done to make sure offenders leave prisons with the skills they need to find a job and not reoffend as soon as they are released.
In Texas, a Republican governor introduced “good behaviour credits”.
They mean prisoners can earn time off their sentence by taking part in rehabilitative activity in prison.
Reoffending dropped, crime fell to a 50-year low and the Texan prison population dropped by 20,000.
Thirdly, we must look at how we can toughen up punishment outside of prisons.
Everyone who breaks our rules must be punished. But some offenders, if they are not dangerous, can be better punished outside prison.
Sentences like these can help end the revolving door of offenders going in and out of prison, coming out more dangerous than they came in.
With the technology at our disposal, like GPS and sobriety tags, anyone punished outside of prison already faces limits on their freedom.
With all the new technology available in the world today, I think we can go much further.
The review starts its work today, led by David Gauke, a former Conservative Justice Secretary.
With a Conservative reviewer and a Labour Government, we will together look at an issue that is all too easy to play politics with.
I will consider its findings six months from now, but let me tell you where I stand.
I believe in prisons and that dangerous offenders must be locked up. But I also believe we can punish some offenders outside of prison too.
I believe in punishment — there must be a price for breaking our rules. But I also believe that rehabilitation is possible and must be pursued.
In Britain today, 80 per cent of offenders are re-offenders.
Rehabilitation is the only true crime-cutting policy.
And my promise to you is this — this Government will ensure the emergency release of offenders never happens again.
AN ex Strictly pro has waded into a ‘fix’ row on the hit BBC competition.
Viewers have criticised a perceived advantage for celeb contestants with previous dance experience.
Professional dancer Ola Jordan, 42, starred in Strictly from 2006 to 2015.
Speaking in a new interview with Mecca Bingo., she shared her thoughts on Week 5’s leaderboard and the stars’ dancing abilities.
Arsenal legend turned pundit Paul Merson was in last place, with 19 points – and he was ultimately eliminated.
Ola said: “The leaderboard was right in some respect because you’ve got Paul, Punam, Pete and Sam in the bottom of the leaderboard, they are all non-dancers.
“The rest above have had some sort of dance-related training, maybe apart from Chris, but he’s very good.
“The bottom four that are on the leaderboard are really pretty much not dancers.”
Those who placed higher include the likes of Shayne Ward, Wynne Evans and JB Gill.
Joint top of the leaderboard were Gladiators’ Montell Douglas and EastEnders‘ Jamie Borthwick, with 39 each.
Soap star Jamie, 30, won last year’s Strictly Christmas special alongside Nancy Xu.
Meanwhile, actress Alex Kingston revealed her pal Sarah Hadland is a “trained ballet dancer”.
Fans hit out at ex-Love Island star Tasha Ghouri over her professional dance training background.
The 26-year-old is partnered with pro Aljaž Škorjanec – and the pair have consistently placed high on the leaderboard each week.
Taking to X, one viewer wrote: “Tasha getting all high scores but sure she’s a professional dancer, bit unfair.”
Another added: “Isn’t Tasha Ghouri a professional dancer? Wasn’t that a thing when she was in Love Island?”
Here's who is matched with who this series...
Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell
Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas
JB Gill and Amy Dowden MBE
Montell Douglas and Johannes Radebe
Nick Knowles and Luba Mushtuk
Paul Merson and Karen Hauer
Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystał
Punam Krishan and Gorka Márquez
Tasha Ghouri and Aljaž Škorjanec
Tom Dean MBE and Nadiya Bychkova
Toyah Willcox and Neil Jones
Sam Quek MBE and Nikita Kuzmin
Sarah Hadland and Vito Coppola
Shayne Ward and Nancy Xu
Wynne Evans and Katya Jones
While a third remarked: “I love tasha but she isn’t meant to be on the show because she is already a PROFESSIONAL DANCER.”
Others disagreed with the notion and came to Tasha’s defence.
A fan penned: “shes not ballroom or latin trained though, there are multiple ‘trained’ dancers on the show.”
Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC One and is available on iPlayer.
TURNING Britain into a nanny state was necessary to stop overwhelming the NHS, Sir Keir Starmer suggested yesterday.
He doubled down on plans for children’s tooth brushing lessons, a smoking ban and no junk food ads before 9pm.
The PM insisted the policies would drastically reduce common health problems to ease pressure on the struggling service.
At an ambulance training centre in East London, Sir Keir said that nanny state prevention tactics were key to his ten-year plan to revive the NHS.
The PM added: “The most common reason for going to a children’s hospital is to have your teeth pulled.
“That’s what led us to supervised brushing.
“Some said that’s the nanny state but, if the cost of not doing it is children losing their teeth, then that’s a necessary measure.”
On the smoking ban, Sir Keir vowed to bring forward a Bill even more ambitious than the one planned by predecessor Rishi Sunak.
He said: “It will be transformational for what is still one of the biggest killers.”
HELEN Flanagan is pretty in pink at tonight’s Pride of Britain Awards.
The ex-Coronation Street actress, 34, shone in a plunging silk gown at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.
Love Islander Maura Higgins, 33, model Kelly Brook, 44, and ex-Strictly star Zara McDermott, 27, also dazzled.
The ceremony hailing the nation’s unsung heroes will be shown on ITV1 at 8pm on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Helen and new man Robbie Talbot have taken their relationship to the next level and moved in together.
Helen is said to be “smitten” by the former footballer who has taken on stepdad duties for her brood.
She has found love again after her split with ex Scott Sinclair, 34.
The pair split in 2022 after a 13-year relationship, and share three kids.
The Sun on Sunday revealed Helen and Robbie’s romance in September after it emerged she had a secret man despite claiming to be single while on TV show Celebs Go Dating.
Robbie moved into her family home in a Lancashire village last month, eight months after getting together.
The construction firm boss, 44, is often seen at the school gates and playing in the park with her kids, Matilda, nine, Delilah, six, and Charlie, three.
A source has now told us: “Helen’s so loved-up with Robbie.
“It’s amazing to finally see her so happy.
“They haven’t been dating for long, but they’re both so smitten they decided to live together.
“It just felt right.”
