Assistant Chief Constable Iain Livingstone, from Lothian and Borders Police, said:
“The day went very well from the beginning with Pope’s safe arrival at Edinburgh Airport and his journey to Holyrood Palace to meet with Her Majesty the Queen. The St Ninian’s day parade and the Papal procession through the capital city was a real spectacle.
“Overall today has been a great success. It has been a unique event, in terms of scale and history. The Pope visited Scotland 28 years ago in a pastoral role, but today was a full state visit by His Holiness, which Edinburgh was privileged to host for the first time.
“The historic nature of this occasion meant it was a challenging day with an audience of 125,000 on the streets. More than 600 officers from Lothian and Borders Police were involved in the operation, in a variety of roles, locations, and performing a variety of functions. Ultimately our experience in handling high profile events like this meant it was a successful and enjoyable day.
“As anticipated there was small scale protest about the visit and our policing response was to ensure that such activity was carried out in an appropriate and lawful manner that did not detract from this state visit. I am pleased to say that there were no arrests.
“As always Lothian and Borders Police has enjoyed the support of other partner agencies making today’s historic visit an event which the Force can feel rightly proud of and a collective success for the people of Edinburgh.”
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