The head of the Association of Chief Police Officers today rejected a watchdog's criticism of the way officers handled the G20 protests, claiming tear gas or rubber bullets would have been employed in any other country.

Sir Ken Jones described the approach to tacking demonstrations as "proportionate" despite a series of videos which have provoked anger at officers' actions.

He was reacting to comments from Nick Hardwick, chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, who said that allegations of brutality against individual officers raised "serious concerns". Mr Hardwick, who pointedly reminded police that they were "servants, not masters" of the public, has called for a review of police tactics during demonstrations.

Ian Tomlinson, who got caught up in the protests around the Bank of England on April 1, died after being pushed to the ground and reportedly hit by an officer. The IPCC is investigating that incident and two others, including an alleged assault on a female protester the following day at a vigil for Mr Tomlinson.

Another video from the protests emerged today which allegedly shows an officer pointing a 50,000-volt Taser at a group of people lying on the floor in apparent contravention of police guidelines.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, Sir Ken said: "Mr Hardwick is entitled of course to his own opinions but I think we need to do our research and realise just how well this activity is done in our country.

"I can't find any other country that doesn't use water cannon, CS gas, rubber bullets. Our approach is proportionate and, in fact, has delivered on many other occasions.

"But on the question of a review, yes, Acpo has has welcomed that, but I think we need to do it with some objectivity and have a broader perspective than I have seen in the last few days. We need to make sure that we don't condemn the many for a problem created by the few."

Sir Ken denied that he was trying to excuse the activities of individual officers, some of whom were alleged to have hidden their identity numbers.

"I'm not making an excuse. What I am saying is that the world is changing," he said. "The way that some people come to these protests now, particularly in Europe, and offer violence to people, to property, to other legitimate protesters, and, yes, they came to attack the police, this has become an increasingly difficult job for us to pull off.

“And I think we just need to look at this in the round. I saw some of the footage last week of whole groups of officers being hemmed in. Nobody wants to talk about that now. Those officers behaved really well, they acted with restraint.”

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