Manchester’s Caribbean Carnival passed without any significant incidents this weekend – though officers were on hand to take action whenever necessary.

The two-day festivities saw tens of thousands of people enjoying the hot weather – taking in the Saturday parade, live performances, and other engaging events for the community.

Officers have worked closely with partners and stakeholders to provide the most appropriate support for the carnival, taking part in multiple meetings to best understand and address any issues raised.

This year’s carnival saw officers utilise Live Facial Recognition (LFR) as part of their policing output, and to provide a further layer of security and support for those in attendance. It has previously been deployed to the Brit Awards, the MOBOs, football matches, the Manchester Marathon and in town centres.

LFR scans faces and takes images, providing alerts to officers where necessary (for example, when someone is wanted or subject to a court order). All images are deleted within 24 hours – with those that don’t trigger an alert deleted within seconds.

There were 34 such alerts over the weekend – resulting in 11 arrests for offences including breach of a sexual harm prevention order, fraud, failing to appear at court, and theft.

The remaining 23 alerts included eleven Registered Sex Offenders – whose conditions were all thoroughly checked by officers – and five people known to regularly carry knives. A missing child was also identified thanks to the technology.

No people were misidentified from any of the scans. In the nearly one million scans of faces taken since LFR’s inception in October last year, only one person – a white female at the Manchester Marathon – has been mistakenly identified.

Officers were on hand to provide information regarding LFR, and had multiple conversations to help bust myths regarding its work.

Assistant Chief Constable Rick Jackson, Gold Commander for the Carnival event, said: “This year’s carnival was a fantastic success from a policing perspective – the overwhelming majority of people enjoyed themselves sensibly and safely.

“A lot of policing work goes into making sure people stay safe during events of this nature, and I would like to thank each officer involved for their hard work.

“As with any event involving such a huge amount of people, a fraction of people were arrested for various reasons – with our officers quickly on hand to deal with situations where necessary.

“LFR has been a great tool in identifying everything from wanted criminals to missing people, doing so accurately and without any misidentifications.

“By working closely with Carnival organisers and the local community, we hope to continue building stronger links going forward, to ensure that we can provide the best possible policing service.”