Don't embarrass Eurovision, police chief tell protesters

Anyone planning to a Eurovision protest should engage with Merseyside Police and not "embarrass" the song contest, a senior officer has said.

Ch Supt Jonathan Davies said there had been no specific threats, but officers were "planning" for the possibility.

He said it was important to deliver "a safe, respectful event".

The force recently dealt with a protest at the Grand National and the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield were stopped on Monday by a campaigner.

Thousands of visitors are expected to descend on Liverpool in the nine days leading up to the Eurovision final on 13 May.

Ch Supt Davies said the force had received no intelligence about specific protests, but he urged anyone who wanted to come and protest during the event to engage with his officers.

"We're planning for it," he told BBC North West Tonight.

"I'm happy with the level of planning.

"We just ask that people don't try and embarrass it or cause problems for themselves because 161 million people will be watching this.

"I think we just need to understand how important it is to the people of Ukraine that we deliver a safe, respectful event on their behalf."

Ch Supt Davies said the policing operation for Eurovision would be "bigger and more complex" than previous events, but Merseyside had "a history of doing mega events".

"We have the [Labour] conference here every year, so we know conferences and how it works," he said.

"We know music events on the Pier Head and how they work. We know about mass events.

"The challenge here and the complexities is we're doing all of those at the same time throughout that nine-day period."

He said there would be 5,500 police officers working across the nine days.

"There's only 4,000 police officers in the force, so people will be working here a lot," he said.

However, he added that despite the challenges ahead, the police plans were in place and the force was "ready to go".

Meanwhile, police have urged the public to be vigilant against terrorism and other crime during the nine days of events.

All the build-up, insights and analysis is explored each week on a BBC podcast called Eurovisioncast.

Eurovisioncast is available on BBC Sounds, or search wherever you get your podcasts from.

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