Who watches the watchmen?

Us, as it turns out. You and me – the plebs with the cameras. (Sorry, this isn’t anything you won’t have read somewhere else these last few weeks, I’ve just finally got around to writing about it.)

As you’re probably aware, there was a bit of a shindig in London town the other week. A bunch of world leaders rocked up on the promise of free sandwiches. And some peace-loving crusty-types smashed up a bank and headbutted police truncheons. Or at least that’s how it appeared through the gaze of the media. Unless you were reading the Guardian Twitter feed, in which case you were probably keeping abreast of what outfit Russell Brand was wearing.

I happened to be next to the bank in question on that afternoon at the very moment all the fracas occurred. Although I was round the corner and didn’t see the actual break in – I assumed people were taking pictures of Russell Brand. Hence the CS gas thrown into the crowd I felt at the time was a bit of an overreaction.

I did see a dude spray a heart onto the side of said bank, which was nice, and a wall of police officers arrive on horse back – in fact, I was amongst the last people to flee the area before it got “kettled”. Imagine me explaining to my boss why my lunchbreak overstretched by eight hours.

What was missed on the day: most of the people there were either peace protestors or curious workers who just dipped out of Eat. One such man, Ian Tomlinson was knocked over by police officers and left to die.

It took (illegal) photographic evidence from members of the public to reveal this – weirdly, all the CCTV cameras in the vicinity had been switched off. And various officers were seen without identification marks on their shoulders.

Meanwhile, embarrassingly, two Austrian tourists get their holiday snaps confiscated. So go the anti-terrorism laws…

Now the police will be investigating themselves to review whether their tactics were heavy-handed and whether officers are justified and proportionate in "the use of force" when dealing with protesters.

The force is indeed strong.