Paddington Green Police Station
Encyclopedia
Paddington
Paddington is a district within the City of Westminster, in central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965...
, central
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...
London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The station is operated by the Metropolitan Police Service
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
, and is a conventional police station
Police station
A police station or station house is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.- Facilities...
, open to members of the public twenty-four hours a day. It also serves as the most important high-security station in the United Kingdom. This is because prisoners suspected of terrorism are held at the station for questioning. The building is a typical 1960s office block, but underneath the station are sixteen cells located below ground level, which have a separate custody suite
Custody suite
A custody suite is a designated area within a police station designed and adapted to process and detain those who have been arrested, or who are there for purposes such as answering bail....
from the building's other cells. Building work was completed in 1971.
High-profile terrorist suspects arrested across the UK are often taken to Paddington Green Police for interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
, and holding until escorted to a Court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
of Law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
. Suspects who have been held there include members of the IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
, the British nationals released from Guantanamo Bay, and the 21 July 2005 London bombers
21 July 2005 London bombings
On 21 July 2005, four attempted bomb attacks disrupted part of London's public transport system two weeks after the 7 July 2005 London bombings. The explosions occurred around midday at Shepherd's Bush, Warren Street and Oval stations on London Underground, and on a bus in Shoreditch...
.
A small IRA
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
bomb was detonated in the telephone box outside Paddington Green Police station early on the morning of 10 October 1992, as a demonstration aimed at the British security services.
In 2007, a joint parliamentary human rights committee stated that the old and decrepit mid-1960s police station was "plainly inadequate" to hold such high risk prisoners. Lord Carlile, the official reviewer of the government's terrorism laws, said the Metropolitan Police needed a new custody suite suitable for up to 30 terrorism suspects. The old cells were 11 foot square and contained no windows and were reportedly too hot in the summer and too cold in winter. Refurbishments were made in 2009 at a cost of £490,000. Suspects now have access to an audio-visual
Audio-visual
The term Audio-Visual may refer to works with both a sound and a visual component, the production or use of such works, or to equipment used to create and present such works...
system on which they can watch films and listen to music whilst incarcerated. This system was added because it was felt inhumane to keep people locked up for to 28 days without any stimulation. One anti-terrorist officer was reported to be angry with these improvements saying, "If you beat up your wife or have a fight down the pub you will be slung in a cramped cell with nothing more than a toilet and a mattress. But if you are a terrorist intent on blowing things up then you get a luxurious cell with a telly and a CD player." The cells are lined with brown paper before suspects arrive so that any traces of explosives found on their bodies can be proven to not have been picked up from the cells.