HAMISH MACDONELL
SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR

MEMBERS of Britain's special forces will be used to help secure the G8 summit in Perthshire this year, the police officer in charge disclosed yesterday.

John Vine, the Chief Constable of Tayside Police, who is running the security operation at what he described as "possibly the biggest event in police terms in the world", told MSPs he would be using "specialist military assets" to help protect world leaders at the Gleneagles Hotel in July.

But he stressed there would be no heavy-handed policing of the protests expected at the event, insisting that he would not tolerate any "sharp practices" by the police against demonstrators.

Mr Vine was giving evidence to Holyrood's European and external relations committee. He said he had called on surveillance and electronic bugging experts when he was running the police operation for the big party political conferences in the late 1990s and he expected to do the same for the G8 summit.

"We always have some co-operation from the military," he said, adding that he had used "specialist military assets" to help secure the Winter Gardens in Blackpool for party conferences.

Mr Vine said: "We will have that same sort of military help in relation to Gleneagles. It is not mainstream military help, it is specialists usually around electronics and surveillance."

He was pressed by Dennis Canavan, the independent MSP, to give an assurance that his police officers would not indulge in the sort of tactics which he claimed to have witnessed during the miners' strike, with strikers being arrested for "conduct liable to cause a breach of the peace" even though they had done nothing wrong.

Mr Vine said he had vivid memories of the miners' strike from his time as a police officer in Yorkshire and said his father had been a miner.

And he added: "We will operate within the law and we expect the protesters to operate within the law. Getting the balance between the rights of protesters and maintaining security is very tricky."

Mr Vine said he held the right to protest very dearly "to my heart" and he stressed: "I am not going to countenance any sharp practice by officers under my command."

He said he believed he had enough resources and power to prevent any serious trouble, but he had the ability to call on the Home Secretary for extra measures if he thought these were necessary.

It is understood that Mr Vine was referring to a section of the Terrorism Act which would allow him to apprehend and search potential trouble-makers if he had reason to suspect a significant breakdown of law and order.

The overall message from Mr Vine was the police operation would be comprehensive but was also designed to help the people of Perthshire get on with their lives, despite the thousands of anti-capitalist and environmental campaigners who are expected to arrive in July.

He said those living and working near the venue would be given as much freedom as possible and he dismissed reports that the A9 would be shut or that local residents would have to carry ID cards.

The police chief also sought to put distance between this July's summit and the G8 gathering in Genoa, Italy, four years ago, which was infamous for its scenes of violence.