Cost of policing the embassy in London where Julian Assange is NZ$20 million - and counting

For those who don't know yet, it is important you know that the cost of policing the embassy in London where Julian Assange has been holed up since mid-2012 has now topped £10 million (NZ$20.6 million).
A London radio station has crunched the numbers after a freedom of information request revealed the Metropolitan Police had spent £9 million (NZ$18.6 million) guarding the diplomatic mission to the end of October 2014.
That's £10,500 (NZ$21,700) per day and, given Assange has been inside the embassy for 960 days since June 19, 2012, the total figure to date is now just over £10 million.
A frustrated British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg insisted the Australian should leave the embassy and "face justice".

Julian Assange - seen here in a 2009 file photo - has cost the British taxpayer nearly $20m since he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012. Photo / AP
The WikiLeaks founder is avoiding extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault.

Assange fears if he's extradited he could subsequently be sent to the United States and charged over the website's release of classified documents.
Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office says the government remains committed to reaching a "diplomatic solution".
"We are clear that our laws must be followed and Mr Assange should be extradited to Sweden," a spokeswoman said in a statement on Thursday.
"As ever we look to Ecuador to help bring this difficult, and costly, situation to an end."
London deputy mayor for policing and crime Stephen Greenhalgh acknowledges the £10 million figure is "an eye-watering amount of money".
"We do need a diplomatic solution," he told British news website The Telegraph.
"But ultimately it is the taxpayer that foots the bill."
London radio station LBC calculates the money spent policing the embassy could have paid for 343 police officers to patrol the city's streets for a year.
Mr Clegg was asked by a caller why the government didn't close the Ecuadorean embassy "and arrest him (Assange) on the way out".
"Am I frustrated that this goes on and on like this and taxpayers are picking up the tab? Yes sure," the deputy PM told LBC.
"(But) just imagine the frustration of the Swedish government.
"It's hardly an illiberal rogue state. Of course the right thing for him (Assange) to do is face justice in a country where due process is well established."
Mr Clegg said the embassy couldn't be closed because "the whole point of having embassies is to maintain a link between countries even at moments of tension".
On the cost of policing, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said: "It is embarrassing to see the UK government spending more on surveillance and detaining an uncharged political refugee than on its investigation into the Iraq war which killed hundreds of thousands."
WikiLeaks on Thursday also released footage of a brief interview with Sweden's director general of legal affairs, Anders Ronquist, in which he declared someone could be held indefinitely until they were charged.
Assange says that comment means Sweden has "imported Guantanamo's most shameful legal practice - indefinite detention without charge".
A Swedish appeal court in mid-November refused to set aside a detention order granted in late 2010 over allegations Assange, now 43, molested and raped two women.
But in the process the court criticised prosecutors for allowing the investigation to stall.