Police dealing with 60 protests a month as result of community tensions

Devon and Cornwall Police are dealing with around 60 protests a month as a result of community unrest, a police and crime panel has been told.

Police and crime commissioner for the region Alison Hernandez said many of the protests were small but police undertook “significant tactical planning and engagement with community leaders” in advance of the larger demonstrations.
A report to the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel on ‘community cohesion’ said planning included conditions being imposed on opposing protest groups at a large protest in Exeter in late October and “a proportionate police presence” which had resulted in “minor disruption to the community and very little disorder”, with only one arrest being made. 
A similar protest in Plymouth was also handled in the same way.
Ms Hernandez told the panel meeting on Friday that engagement had taken place with MPs and the leader of the council to make sure there was an “exchange of intelligence”.
But some panel members from Plymouth called for greater engagement with ward councillors who often had a great deal of knowledge about their areas.
The police and crime commissioner said she was not sure that every protest required the same amount of management by the police: “Otherwise that might be all they are doing but I am happy to take intelligence from councillors,” she said.
She said she had received nothing but praise about how the police had liaised with the local councillors to fact check what was true and what was not ahead of the Exeter protest.
“Perhaps that may not be the case in Plymouth,” she said.
The meeting also heard that hate crime had risen in the two counties for the second year running with a total of 2,354 crimes recorded from August 2024 to August 2025. 
Racial related hate crime saw an increase of 9.4% or 114 crimes over that period.
The police and crime commissioner, who holds the chief constable to account but whose job will be phased out in a couple of years said: “When there are national conversations about particularly contentious issues, there tends to be a spike in hate crime which is why our words really do matter – our job locally is to help ease community tensions.”
She said people who recorded hate crime would be taken seriously and incidents were recorded even if they were not yet a crime.
“It’s an early indication of what is happening in our communities, it’s an early warning sign,” she said.
Cllr Joe Hodgetts (Lib Dem, Cornwall, Porthleven) said the police spent an awful lot of time discussing the barriers people face when reporting hate crime but not coming up with solutions.
”Maybe it’s time to really drill down into what those barriers are,” he said.
Ms Hernandez said that was a really good point and she would go away and have a think about it.