Campaigners reacted angrily last night after Scotland Yard suggested protesters should consider avoiding Baroness Thatcher’s cortège – because they face arrest under a controversial public order law.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman told The Independent yesterday that demonstrators were more likely than usual to be held under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, because mourners are considered particularly vulnerable to suffering distress.

The law allows police to detain those who cause “alarm, harass or distress”, and officers will be given discretion about how they interpret the law. A Scotland Yard spokesman urged protesters to consider “staying away” and that, because of the vulnerable state of those in attendance, arrests under Section 5 could be “higher up the agenda” than usual.

The advice was met angrily by protesters who described it as “draconian” warning that the deployment of arrests under the Public Order Act that was testament to an “era of compulsory mourning”.

Val Swain, of the police monitoring campaign group Netpol, said: “This is a public state occasion not a private family funeral. The power is so wide-ranging that it gives police huge discretion over who they can arrest. It is tantamount to arresting people that are not supportive of Thatcher’s ideology.”

The Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans MP defended the cost of the funeral, adding that he does not know where the much-cited £10m figure has come from.

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