Paddington Green Police Station was a

Metropolitan Police Service The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

station located in

Paddington Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...

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, and closed in 2018.

History

Building work on the station was completed in 1971. As well as providing local services, the station was used as an interrogation centre for prisoners suspected of terrorism. Underneath the station were sixteen cells located below ground level, which had a separate custody suite from the building's other cells. High-profile terrorist suspects arrested across the UK were often taken to Paddington Green Police Station for

interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...

, and holding until escorted to a court of law. Suspects who have been held there include members of the

IRA Ira or IRA may refer to: *Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name *Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name *Iran, UNDP code IRA Law *Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...

, the British nationals released from Guantanamo Bay, and the 21 July 2005 London bombers. On 10 October 1992, an IRA bomb exploded in a phone box outside the police station, injuring one person.

Refurbishment

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 Alexander Charles Carlile, Baron Carlile of Berriew, (born 12 February 1948) is a British barrister and crossbench member of the House of Lords. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Montgomeryshire from 1983 to 1997. Early life and career ...

, 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 12-foot square, 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. In later years, suspects had access to an

audio-visual Audiovisual (AV) is electronic media possessing both a sound and a visual component, such as slide-tape presentations, films, television programs, corporate conferencing, church services, and live theater productions. Audiovisual service prov ...

system on which they could watch films and listen to music whilst incarcerated. This system was added because it was deemed inhumane to keep people locked up for up to 28 days without any stimulation. The cells were lined with brown paper before suspects arrive so that any traces of explosives found on their bodies can be proven not to have been picked up from the cells.

Closure

The station closed in late 2018. In February 2020, the closed station was occupied by anarchist group the Green Anti-Capitalist Front, who said they intended to turn the space into a community centre. They discovered that the police station was being used for police firearms training, which had to be rescheduled.

References

External links

*{{cite web, url=http://content.met.police.uk/PoliceStation/paddingtongreen, title=Paddington Green Police Station, publisher=Metropolitan Police Service, accessdate=25 June 2015 Buildings and structures in the City of Westminster Former Metropolitan Police stations Paddington