The Met Police arrested 169 people on the first day of Notting Hill Carnival in West London.
Cops made the arrests for offences including drug and weapon possession, assaults and sexual offences.
The force said 29 arrests were made using live facial recognition (LFR) which enabled the identification of 26 registered sex offenders who were found to be in breach of their sentence conditions.
Officers also responded to two knife assaults – a slashing to the leg and a slashing to the hand – neither of which resulted in life changing or life threatening injuries.
The two-day street party sees millions of Londoners descend on Notting Hill in west London each year for a celebration of Caribbean culture.
The event has been blamed in the past for causing violence, with cops arresting 500 people, mainly for drug offences, in 2025.
The Met said this year’s event had seen “positive progress” and that a more “proactive approach” to event management had seen a reduction in the number of cases of serious violence.
The force said the overwhelming mood had been “positive and celebratory.”.
Commander Claire Smart, who is in charge of the policing operation, said: “We have been working closely with Notting Hill Carnival Ltd and other partners for many months ahead of this weekend’s event.
“The organisers have stepped forward significantly across the event, including crowd management, and we have seen the positive progress today.
“While we have seen a significant number of arrests and interventions by officers, the result of that proactive approach is a welcome reduction in the levels of serious violence seen at the event in previous years.
“Nobody involved in the delivery of the event is complacent, however. There are still many officers deployed across the footprint to ensure crowds disperse safely.
“We will have officers on duty through the night and tomorrow we will go again to ensure we can continue to tackle the minority who want to come to Carnival to spoil the celebration for the majority.”
Earlier this week, the force said more than 7,000 officers would be deployed to west London over the bank holiday weekend.
The carnival includes parades, live music, street food and sound stages and is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.
In 2025, the Met said it made 528 arrests across the two main days of the carnival, including 167 for drug offences, 50 for possession of an offensive weapon, 21 for sexual offences, four for violence with injury and 49 for other violence.
In 2024, there were eight stabbings, including the murder of 32-year-old mother Cher Maximen, with the same number the previous year, and seven including a murder in 2022.
Day two of this year’s event is set to take place on bank holiday Monday
