The Daily Fail (or is it Heil?) slanders prisoners

We have read some absolute crap over the years but Andrew Malone’s “investigation” into “A terrorist called Mumsy” has to win some sort of prize!
Andrew regurgitating a NETCU press release is not an investigation dearie and for those who read this give Andrew and DCI Andy Robbins any credibility consider the following facts;
Sarah has been in prison for years now but according to Andrew she has only been in for a week!
How exactly can a prisoner be forced to wear leather shoes? First Andrew says Sarah is forced to wear leather, then he says she is living a vegan life of Riley. Did you make this up in the pub Andrew or what?
Sarah had nothing to do with digging up Gladys Hammond.
If SHAC were a “ruthless IRA-style gang” where are all the bodies and limping people who have been knee-capped, those who have been tarred and feathered? (we at NW fully acknowledge that atrocities were committed by the UVF and British soldiers and police as well during the Troubles). Stop exaggerating Andrew, we know it makes a better headline but really show some respect to those who have suffered both in Ireland and on the UK mainland especially as we approach Rememberance Sunday.
What extensive training at “safe houses” on how to avoid police surveillance?
And it goes on and on and on 2 entire pages worth.
Solidarity with Sarah and the other activists who have been painted as her mere stooges.

Arggggh the foxes are coming….PANIC NOW

This has been going on just a little bit. Today the Daily Mail really get going….again. On page 25 we hear the terror of a family who escaped with their lives after a fox cub sat on a bedroom window sill with the inevitable “air of menace” (we hope he pissed on their curtains the wimps).
Things really get going on pages 28-29 with Paul Bracchi’s hilarious investigation into “the real animals” i.e the ANIMAL RIGHTS EXTREMISTS who have dared to question the accepted orthodoxy that
1. a fox mauled the Kouparris twins
2. that as a result all foxes must die
3. that anyone who does not go along with all the histrionics is an animal rights extremist nutter who must be locked away.
4. that the police have to protect the family in case they are attacked by people who do not swallow hook, line and sinker their story.

Right, so the facebook 3 mentioned spoke to one another and used some strong language questioning the story and condemning the murders of innocent creatures which followed. Some of the quotes mentioned are not pleasant but hey we show a couple of examples of naughty death threats and swearing from animal abusers on this site and the police are not protecting us (prabably because some police officers are naughty enough to write some of this stuff maybe), nor do we want them to. Paul wants the FB 3 locked up all the same though. How dare they contradict the Daily Mail?

He also says that they regard babies and foxes as morally the same the heretics. Well the term animal rights or animal liberation in a nutshell is the acceptance that other animals have a s much right to be and to live as humans do, we do not buy the old Abrahamic tradition which dictates humans are more important as a fact without substantiation. We accept that we are evolved from other apes and part of the web of life and not above other species. It is not anti human, this way of living accepts humans as worthy of compassion and respect but extends that courtesy to all living beings. Thus to kill every fox in the area just because one might have injured a baby maybe in a panic whilst escaping is indeed the same as killing every taxi driver in Cumbria the only difference being that if you were to do the latter you might get nicked!Oh yes and the body count as well but then humans are very good at killing, maiming and torturing far better than any other animal.
In fact babies have far more to fear from our own species than any other.
Leaving children alone in gardens or in houses with windows open allowing access is a risk which parents have to take into account. This sounds like a freak accident and a hysterical purge in which entire innocent families are euphemistically “humanely killed” (how is murder “humane”?) should be subject to ridicule and scrutiny.

Good luck to the facebook 3 and we suggest that you get legal advice, the Daily Mail have a nasty habit of demonising people which oft preceeds a police investigation and arrests.

On page 36 Jan Moir gives her two penny worth by saying that because Brian May, that naughty bad man, has questioned the story as well that he should make amends to the family. WTF???!!!!

We hope that the Kouparris family rebuild their lives and that the twins get better quickly from whatever happened and urge that the demonification of an entire species stops as let’s face it compared to humans the great killer ape they are angelic. Even if they do piss everywhere at least they don’t annihilate an entire ecosystem by pouring oil into the sea. As for the media, for goodness sake stop reporting on this shite and voice concerns about real threats to children such as global warming, the putrification of land and water, the steady erosion of our civil liberties etc. It is getting really boring now.

We have yet to view Panorama which also looks at this case…sigh.

Police merely caution hunt thug for violent behaviour

A grandmother was verbally abused and forced to jump clear of the wheels of a 4×4 vehicle driven by a man following an Oxfordshire hunt.

Judy Gilbert, 60, a member of the League Against Cruel Sports, was monitoring the activities of the Vale of White Horse Hunt, at Filkins, in west Oxfordshire, in December, when a man following the hunt reversed his four-wheel drive vehicle towards her and shouted abuse.

Mrs Gilbert said she escaped serious injury only by leaping on to a roadside verge. She was on the phone to the police at the time, reporting the same driver for damaging her car just an hour earlier.

About £500 worth of damage was caused to Mrs Gilbert’s car after the man allegedly opened her door and slammed it into his own vehicle. It is also claimed he subjected Mrs Gilbert to a torrent of verbal abuse.

Last week, the man – who has not been named – was arrested and cautioned by police after admitting causing criminal damage.

Video footage given to police shows a man reaching through his car window and opening Mrs Gilbert’s car door, while yelling a string of expletives.

She said: “I was very shaken and my car sustained hundreds of pounds-worth of damage. It’s outrageous. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and leaped out of the way on to a grass verge. If I hadn’t spotted him I could have been killed, or injured at the very least.”

Thames Valley Police spokesman Victoria Bartlett confirmed that a 68 year-man had been cautioned for criminal damage in connection with the incident.

She said: “He admitted the offence, apologised for his actions, and was issued with an adult caution which will stay on his record for five years.”

Mark Hill, a retired master of the hunt, said he had not been aware of the incident but said: “We would absolutely not at all condone this kind of behaviour.”

He added: “We have only had monitors out once this season and we thought they were very aggressive.

“If somebody backfired on them I would not condone it, and it certainly wasn’t one of our members, but they probably had it coming to them.”

Article taken from the Oxford Mail

Lawson-Cruttenden sacked by Oxford University

From Arkangel
Solicitor Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden has been sacked by Oxford University after failing in his attempts to get SPEAK Campaigns founders imprisoned.

Specialist injunction lawyer Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden has made a small fortune out of misusing the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act.

The Act was originally designed to protect vulnerable woman but has been manipulated by the firm Lawson-Cruttenden and Co in order to make it easy for big business to stifle legitimate protest. It was reported that the university paid its legal team approximately £44,000 to build up a contempt of court case against SPEAK campaigns founders Robert Cogswell and Mel Broughton in order to get them imprisoned. Lawson-Cruttenden was immediately sacked after his failure to win the key case for the university.

Mr. Justice King dismissed the case against Robert Cogswell in the High Court on 1st February. Earlier on in the day Oxford University had dropped the contempt of court proceedings against Mel Broughton.

The charges stemmed from an article posted on the SPEAK website on 16th October 2006 which highlighted who SPEAK believe to be the company responsible for building a new animal testing lab at Oxford University. The university’s solicitors claimed SPEAK had broken the terms set forth in the injunction that prohibit the naming of ‘protected’ persons. The name of the contractor was also sent out in an email alert to more than 700 subscribers. Because of this, the university demanded and was granted an order by the High Court forcing Mr Cogswell and Mr Broughton to hand over the list of subscribers, even despite the fact that the name of the builder had also been published on numerous other websites, including the Guardian news site and the Oxford Mail.

However, as the list was not in the control of Mr Cogswell or Mr Broughton, they were unable to produce it in the allotted time and university solicitors Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden then sought to imprison them both on contempt of court charges.

An inside source within the university has also told Arkangel that another reason for the sacking of Mr. Lawson Cruttenden was the fact that the university were unhappy with his firm’s “unprofessional” conduct, after it was disclosed in Court that despite the fact that Lawson Cruttenden & Co had accused SPEAK of being involved in “intimidation” and “harassment” and of orchestrating a “terrorist” campaign, and had further accused Arkangel and its editor, Robert Cogswell of being a mouthpiece for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and having links with “violent extremists”, those working for the firm, and in particular Mr. Rizwan Majid, the main architect of the Injunction proceedings against SPEAK and its co-founders, was passing scanned copies of past Arkangel magazines to the Arkangel website so that they could be used on the archive page.

It would appear that Oxford University are unhappy that at the same time as Lawson-Cruttenden & Co and Mr. Majid were compiling legal files to be used against Arkangel and its editor, those working for Mr. Lawson-Cruttenden were passing files to Arkangel knowing full well that they would be used on the Arkangel website.

Robert Cogswell commented: “Mr. Lawson-Cruttenden and those working for him are playing a very dangerous game, they profess to believe in the rule of law but at the same time they are clearly attempting to misuse the legal system and hoodwink the Courts in order to presumably line their own pockets.”

He further added, “In the one breath Arkangel has been accused of being in league with “violent extremists” and being a mouthpiece for the ALF, which I refute totally. One only has to look at the Arkangel website to see just how absurd this accusation is. However, whilst at the same time accusing us of being involved with “violent extremists”, those working for Lawson-Cruttenden & Co are passing documents to the people they are accusing of being “terrorists”. They can’t have it both ways. Either we are “terrorists”, in which case what are they doing passing us documents, or we are not, in which case they are lying to the courts. Either way, they are acting in a disgraceful manner and in my opinion both Mr. Lawson-Cruttenden and Mr. Majid should be struck off the Law Society registrar and should be banned from practicing law. In my opinion they are making a mockery of the British Judicial system.”

This is not the first time that the firm Lawson-Cruttenden have been accused of unprofessional conduct. Arkangel ran a news story on the 17th January this year that anti arms trade campaigners have handed in 7 official complaints to the Law Society regarding the conduct of Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, who represented EDO MBM in their failed attempt to gain an injunction against protesters at their Brighton factory.

In March 2005 Mr Lawson-Cruttenden, on behalf of the Brighton arms manufacturers, began proceedings aimed at preventing anybody protesting within a kilometre of the factory (save for at a designated time in a designated ‘protest area’). The action sparked a year long high-court battle against campaigners ending in EDO MBM dropping the case at a cost of at least a million pounds.

Throughout the case Mr Lawson-Cruttenden had unprecedented access to confidential material held on campaigners by Sussex Police. The complaints to the law society cover the manner in which he obtained this disclosure.

Court rejects ASBOS for airport activists

Full article posted on Indymedia 18th December 2006

On Friday, Loughborough Magistrates Court rejected calls from the Crown Prosecution Service to slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stupid activists who they described as “highly organised extremists” that were arrested in connection with the shut down of Nottingham East Midlands short haul airport in September.

In an apparent move aimed to avoid having the case heard by a jury, the charge of public nuisance was dropped, as was the charge relating to an alleged breach of the aviation and security act.

Plane Stupid lawyer, Mike Schwarz, described the action to the court as a “classic piece of civil disobedience” and reminded the court that “Tony Blair himself has described climate change as the greatest threat facing mankind.”

Campaigner for Plane Stupid, Ellen Rickford, said, “The same day that we learn the government is pushing ahead with its airport expansion proposals, they try to use ASBOs to stamp out peaceful protest. Well, it seems their plans for that were as doomed as the aviation industry.”

The way the police treat us verges on the criminal

Henry Porter
Sunday October 29, 2006
The Observer

Guilty until proven innocent now seems to be the watchword of a government that increasingly treats its law-abiding citizens with absolute contempt

A father and his eight-year-old son got off a train at Blackpool on a Friday evening two weeks ago to be confronted by a number of police officers moving passengers towards a scanner. There was a mildly threatening manner about them and it was clear that they expected everyone to pass through the scanner, which they said was being used to search for knives.

The man, whose name is Danny, quietly told the police that unless they had a very good reason, he would not be searched. One or two passengers hesitated, then joined him in refusing to go through the scanner. The police were clearly disgruntled, but couldn’t do anything because Danny was right: they had to have reasonable grounds for suspecting he was carrying a knife in order to search him. ‘I am not some rabid left winger or civil libertarian,’ he wrote in an email to me. ‘It just seems we are allowing a police state to be developed without an argument.’ On the phone, he seemed to modify this by saying that the police behaviour had been oppressive.

Thank God there are still people like Danny who know the law and understand that part of its fragile essence is the respect for the rights of the innocent citizen when confronted with authority. The British Transport Police may insist that its Operation Shield, as this random trawl is known, is for the common good in that it fights knife crime, but think twice about the attitude it betrays and you realise that it is another small erosion in the esteem for the individual. Such behaviour makes everyone a suspect.

Tony Blair talks incessantly about respect, yet there are few who have done more to degrade authority’s respect for the public. Nowhere is that better seen than in the behaviour of the police, which gradually becomes more coercive and imbued with the idea that we are all bad hats until we prove otherwise. We now live in a country where the idea of wrongful arrest has become a historic curiosity and where anyone can be arrested for the slightest offence and compelled to become part of the government’s DNA database.

We live in a country where young boys – one was just seven – are taken aside and questioned for trying to knock conkers out of chestnut trees on public ground. Where a grandmother whose neighbour accused her of not returning a ball kicked into her garden was arrested, fingerprinted and required to give her DNA. The police went through every room in her house, even her daughter’s drawers, before letting her go without charge or caution.

Where two sisters can be arrested after a peaceful protest about climate change, held in solitary confinement for 36 hours without being allowed to make a phone call, then told not to talk to each other as a condition of their bail. As this paper reported, their money, keys, computers, discs and phones were confiscated, their homes searched.

There is much more, all of it enabled by Blair’s laws and encouraged by a vindictive and erroneous contention that defendants’ rights must be reduced in the pursuit of more and quicker prosecutions. Our prisons are full, problem teenagers are, by default, exiled to a kind of outlawry and every citizen becomes the subject of an almost hysterical need by the authorities to check up on and chivvy them.

The government regards us not just as wedded to too many regrettable vices – smoking, speeding, drinking too much, eating unhealthy food and taking no exercise – but also as innately prone to law-breaking. Perhaps with good reason, since, according to the Liberal Democrat homes affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, some 3,000 criminal offences have been created by Labour. The more crimes there are, the more criminals there will be.

Mass surveillance has begun on our motorways and in our town centres. Metropolitan drivers increasingly find themselves pressed into numberplate-recognition camera traps on the same principle that inspires Operation Shield. Everyone has something to hide unless they can prove otherwise, which is why the police also enthusiastically pursue samples for the DNA database. (Incidentally, by next year, the total number of profiles will rise to three million, one in five of which will belong to black people.)

The police are in their very own heaven and demand more and more powers of instant justice, a contradiction in terms if ever there was one. These will allow them to crush people’s cars, issue more on-the-spot fines and ban ‘undesirables’ from any area they choose without having to go to court. Even parish councils are to become part of this culture of minatory bossiness. Instead of having to apply to central government to introduce new bylaws, they are to be given powers by Ruth Kelly, the Communities and Local Government Minister, to levy instant £100 fines for skateboarding, not cleaning up dog mess, busking and, no doubt, scrumping for apples and playing Pooh sticks. How will it end – with CCTV cameras watching small boys for inappropriate behaviour in the vicinity of horse chestnuts?

In his frantic terminality, Blair plans the sinister information-sharing index, otherwise known as the universal child register, and last week was musing that we should all have our DNA stored on the national base. Link this to his earlier remarks about identifying problem children who might grow up to be a menace to society by intervening before they were born and you begin to feel the chill of the technology-driven authoritarianism.

What runs through all this seems to be a rather surprising dislike of the British people. It was once possible to believe the government’s unusual attention to law, order and behaviour was benevolent yet ill-conceived. Now it looks more like the result of late-onset sociopathy, influenced by a long period in power and the degenerate entanglement between Downing Street and the seething red-top newspapers.

The prevailing account of Britain in the current political establishment has become deeply pessimistic and, to my mind, wrong. Yes, we have problems with home-grown terrorism, loutishness, a swelling underclass, unintegrating minorities, but there is another story. Britain is also a success and it should occur to one of our political leaders to defy the orthodoxy of decline and compliment the nation on its adaptability and deep reserves of virtue and toleration.

Think of the charitable activity in this country, of the level of public debate that wells up in BBC programmes such as Any Questions, the deep interest in history, the eagerness of the audiences at arts festivals all over Britain, the humour and generosity of spirit, the commitment to local communities, to understanding each other’s needs and of the array of passions and hobbies which absorb so many millions of people whose quiet, law-abiding fulfilment as Britons goes undescribed by the furious negativity of the moment. It is these people, with their stored-up virtue and unself-conscious decency, who the government seeks to turn into suspects and infantilise by its morbid intrusion.

It is not the government’s business to encroach on our experience as individuals in a democracy, to threaten us with so much oppressive legislation and always to assume our guilt. But there is another reason and that is because we are soon going to have to have the debate about individual liberty in the context of rapid climate change. That will only work if the government treats us like adults and says: ‘Look, this is potentially the greatest crisis civilisation has ever faced and we need your help.’ The resulting contract must be between equals – the people and the state – and in a relationship where respect flows both ways.That, ultimately, is what this nagging and suspicious government threatens.

SOCPA – is superintendent terry mad?

Original article taken from Indymedia 15th October 2006

desperate to keep the ever more bizarre and crazy actions of charing cross police from being discussed in a court of law, superintendent terry (left) seriously tried to have a peace protestor sectioned under the mental health act yesterday rather than charge her with an offence where real evidence could be scrutinised in a court of law.

followers of issues around the serious organised crime and police act (socpa) on indymedia, will be aware of past attempts by superintendent terry’s charing cross gang to rid the streets around parliament of political protest.

one woman, barbara tucker, has borne the brunt of this extended campaign. she has been ‘reported’ for socpa breaches more than sixty times, but because she originally ‘notified’ the police of her ongoing single-woman protest against government genocide before she started, the police themselves have breached the socpa legislation by refusing to give her ‘authorisation’.

ok, maybe it’s not quite as black and white as that. they claim that her notification did not fulfil the requirements of the act as it was made by email and it doesn’t give a set time and place, instead notifying that she would protest anywhere in the designated zone at any time until this government has gone. but since the law was framed in such a way as to attempt not to breach human rights, it is arguable that her notification does actually comply with the wording of the law, and the police are clearly concerned about this, because despite sixty ‘reports’ of the offence, not one has yet been properly tested in court.

instead, it looks rather as though barbara has been subjected to an unlawful campaign of spurious arrests, occasional beatings, unlawful detentions, and more recently attempts to get her incarcerated on a more permament basis without trial.

i’ve reported previously on some of this, so i won’t go back over all the detail (you can read more background at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/350008.html and http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/350217.html), but i’ll briefly recap this particular strand of socpa history.

on august 5th, the day of the national stop the war ‘lebanon’ march past downing street, barbara was arrested for ‘obstructing the highway’ outside downing street. she appeared on bail at charing cross police station the following month, and asked her friend steve jago to go with her as a witness. he was invited into an area out of public scrutiny, but then told he couldn’t accompany her any further.

he had his camera forcibly removed and was seriously assaulted. both steve and barbara were then charged with ‘obstructing an officer in the course of their duty’. unfortunately, police cannot provide any cctv footage from inside the station of the incident, and are relying on police witness evidence alone. draw your own conclusions.

barbara’s solicitor was told barbara was being charged with this offence and then left the station under the impression barbara would soon be released on police bail, but instead police held barbara overnight and took her to what amounted to a secret hearing the next morning for the original ‘obstruction of the highway’ offence.

fortunately for barbara, the serco staff were appalled that she didn’t have the representation she requested, and called her solicitor on her behalf. the police were calling for barbara to be remanded in custody at holloway for a more than a month pending trial (unheard of for a highway obstruction charge). the solicitor arrived in time, and that idea was thrown out after her intervention, but police then went for conditions on bail banning barbara from anywhere in the designated zone.

once again, the solicitor showed the illegality of this request, but barbara ended up with conditions limiting her to parliament square. these conditions were thrown out of court the following week by a different judge.

during barbara’s detention at charing cross, they had access to legally privileged information and correspondence that she had with her relating to her defence case on two socpa charges that at last were coming to court. she was actually on her way to a meeting with her solicitor, and expected the bail appearance to be a mere formality rather than the nightmare of 23 hours in the cell and a closed court hearing that it became. it was clear the police went through these documents, casting doubt on the possibility of a fair trial.

so, yesterday afternoon, she had to attend charing cross again, on bail for the ‘obstructing a police officer’ charge, and learning her lesson from before, she took her solicitor along with her. this turned out to be very fortunate.

first, she was thoroughly searched, including outer layers of clothes removed and turned inside out, her shoes removed, her feet examined, and so on. then, superintendent terry himself turned up (he was the senior officer at the station over the weekend). terry states that he is concerned about barbara tucker’s mental health, and is ordering her to submit to an assessment under the mental health act. he warned her that if she refuses, then she can be forced to submit, and held for up to 72 hours.

thankfully, as barbara had her solicitor there, she took advice, and they agreed to formally refuse the assessment, and demand that any ‘forced’ assessment take place with the solicitor as a witness to any questions asked and the replies given.

although a mental health team had been arranged at the station, the police backed down, and the solicitor witnessed the police writing ‘nfa’ (no further action) on barbara’s file. the police then attempted to bring in a police doctor, but when the solicitor again challenged this, the police backed down once more.

after several hours effectively keeping her in detention again, the police did the only thing left to them and finally charged her for the ‘obstructing a police officer’ offence setting a date next thursday 19th 11am horseferry road.

so once again, the legality of the entire police harrassment of barbara and her single-woman peaceful protest against genocide remains out of court. they are doing what they can to bring other charges against her (they’ve dropped an ‘assaulting a police officer’ charge, but the ‘highway obstruction’ charge is still pending). and still no socpa case against her has been heard in court.

i am sure barbara will be back in the designated zone very soon, sporting her brilliant pink ‘bliar’s genocide’ banner, and i only hope that police on the ground will ponder the madness of superintendent terry before following any further orders to intimidate this peaceful and very brave campaigner as she continues to highlight the ever-growing realisation that blair is the only real serious organised criminal in the designated zone.

New Labour’s dangerous catch-all harassment legislation

George Monbiot
Tuesday October 3, 2006
The Guardian

I’m pleased the case against this ranting homophobe was dropped
But if the police had used New Labour’s dangerous catch-all harassment legislation, they might well have got their man.

Stephen Green represents everything most readers of the Guardian loathe. As head of the organisation Christian Voice, he sought to have Jerry Springer: the Opera banned from theatres and the BBC, and prosecuted for blasphemy. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans he issued a press release claiming that it was God’s judgment on the city’s celebration of “fetishism, sadism, promiscuity, indecency, obscenity and all the other tawdry aspects of homosexual life … Purity blew into New Orleans and purity broke the levees and flooded the city.” He wants to reintroduce the death penalty and impose “restorative justice on the biblical model”.

More entertainingly, he claims that Pakistan’s cricket team lost the last Test series because he prayed that God would punish Mohammad Yousuf, one of their leading players, for his conversion to Islam. “The way in which the umpires handled the initial alleged offence of tampering with the ball, and then the massive umbrage Pakistan took … is the sort of unexpected event which only Almighty God can bring about.”

Yet we should be pleased that the charges he faced last week have been dropped. Stephen Green is offensive, intolerant and illiberal. But so is the law under which he was arrested.

Green had been handing out leaflets to the revellers at the Mardi Gras gay and lesbian festival in Cardiff at the beginning of September. By his standards they were pretty mild. They quoted Leviticus and Romans, compared homosexuality to incest and claimed that “by faith in Jesus it is even possible to be healed of homosexual desires … you do have a choice as to whether you continue in a lifestyle which leads to hell, or whether you decide to put yourself right with God through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He was arrested and charged under the Public Order Act 1986 with using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby”. On Thursday, however, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the case.

It is not clear why the CPS let him go, but it is probably because it knew the prosecution would fail. Green’s leaflets, though offensive to gays and lesbians, used no threatening or abusive words, and he did nothing but seek to persuade people to take them. So it was dim of the police to have thrown the Public Order Act at him. Had they tried the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, or the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, they might have got their man.

The Protection from Harassment Act allows the crown to prosecute anyone causing a person “alarm or distress” if this involves “conduct on at least two occasions”. Conduct, it tells us, “includes speech”. Under this law, in other words, it is not necessary to demonstrate “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” to secure a prosecution. If Green had tried twice to persuade the same person to take one of his leaflets, and if that person was distressed by his actions, he might have been deemed to have committed an offence under the act. If found guilty, he could have been banged up for six months and given an order preventing him from repeating the offence, on pain of five years behind bars.

The act, or so the Labour government told us, was designed to protect people from stalkers, and this was a worthy aim. But when it was drafted, several of us warned that it could just as well be used against protesters. We were ignored. The government listed defences under the act – seeking to prevent or detect a crime or to protect yourself or your property – but protest was not one of them. Our predictions came true sooner than we imagined: the first three people prosecuted under the act were all peaceful protesters. It is now used routinely against nonviolent animal-rights protesters and people demonstrating peacefully outside military bases and at arms fairs.

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act would have been even more useful. Buried in the middle of this enormous piece of legislation, and missed by every MP who debated the bill, is a section on “harassment intended to deter lawful activities”. Under this act, the definition of a “course of conduct” is broadened to include causing alarm or distress to “two or more persons”. In other words, Green would only have had to approach two revellers once to have fallen under suspicion of breaching the act. It appears to have been deliberately designed to criminalise protest. “Harassment” now involves seeking “to persuade any person … not to do something that he is entitled or required to do, or to do something that he is not under any obligation to do”. Again there is no defence for peaceful protest.

This act, then, appears to permit the police to ban anyone from protesting about anything. And not just the police. “Any person who is or may be a victim of the course of conduct in question … may apply to the high court or a county court for an injunction restraining the relevant person.” If I disagree with what you say, I could take you to court.

Luckily, the police – fuddled like everyone else by the size and complexity of the act – have not yet grasped its full implications, though they have used another of its sections, which bans us from demonstrating near parliament without their permission. But it can’t be long before they realise how powerful they have become. When they do, they will abandon the acts passed under Conservative governments by bleeding-heart liberals such as Leon Brittan and Michael Howard, in favour of the much more draconian laws propelled through a dozy parliament by Tony Blair.

The irony of Stephen Green’s case is that he has sought to deny others the freedoms he rightly claims. As well as trying to shut down Jerry Springer: the Opera, he sought a prosecution for blasphemy against Terrence McNally’s play Corpus Christi, and threatened to sue Channel 4 over its plans to screen Gunther von Hagens’ (admittedly pointless and stupid) crucifixion of a corpse. In justifying his attack on the Springer opera, he argued that “free speech is not an unqualified human right, it is limited. It brings responsibilities, and the causing of gratuitous offence is hardly the hallmark of a civilised society.”

If by “civilised” Green means just, he is wrong. Only just societies permit people to cause offence without fear of prosecution or punishment. Only just societies leave it to public opinion, rather than the law, to decide whether or not the offence is gratuitous. A just society is one in which Stephen Green may freely rant, however much the rest of us dislike what he has to say.

But we have no such protections here. The law permits the police to decide who may speak and what he may say. Even if they don’t secure prosecutions, they can use the new laws to shut people up and cart them away. If we object to this, what can we do? Register our protest? Only if the police allow it.

Our lazy, frightened, incompetent MPs let this legislation pass. Will they now be brave enough to call for its repeal?

So many causes, so little time

Unless you have permission, it’s illegal to demonstrate near the Houses of Parliament. But that wasn’t going to stop Mark Thomas, who set out to make a record number of protests in one day

Thursday October 12 2006
The Guardian

So many causes, so little time

Last summer, my friend Sian was threatened with arrest for having a picnic in Parliament Square. The police had said her meal was a political demonstration, as she had the word “Peace” iced on a cake. Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (Socpa), which restricts the right to demonstrate near the square, she should have got permission from the police six days before getting the victoria sponge out of its Tupperware container. As the law insists that one person counts as a demonstration, anyone wearing a CND, trade union or Vote Conservative badge in Parliament Square could, in theory, be arrested for demonstrating without permission.

Most people know that this rule was brought in by Labour to kick the peace campaigner Brian Haw out of Parliament Square. What many do not know is that it does not just apply to the square, but to a designated zone covering a sizable part of central London. So if you wanted to stand outside the Channel 4 building, 10 minutes’ walk away from the square, with a badge saying “Please don’t repeat Friends any more”, you would need police permission.

While some have chosen to challenge the law by noncompliance – such as Maya Evans, who was arrested and fined last December for reading out the names of those killed in the Iraq war by the Cenotaph – others have chosen a less confrontational approach. If the police need to issue licences for each and every lone demonstrator, they said to themselves, what would happen when a whole load of lone demonstrators arrive at the same time for individual permissions to demonstrate? So, the past three months have seen mass lone protests, in which about 150 people test police bureaucracy by getting licences for each and every one of them. The police can only refuse to issue the licences on the grounds of public safety or public order

Inspired by these mass actions, I decided that I would demonstrate all over the Socpa zone – and, being an upright citizen, get permission to do it. So, last week, I nipped into Charing Cross police station to apply to have 21 individual demonstrations on the same day in the designated area.

Through earlier protests, I have got to know the man who coordinates the requests quite well. PC Paul McInally now handles most of the Socpa applications. “What can I do for you today, Mark?” he asks, as we sit in the interview room.

“I’ve got 21 forms for you.”

“Right then,” he says in a businesslike fashion, “let’s go through them.” I like PC McInally. We sort of bonded a few months ago when I handed in an application to demand the immediate sacking of Superintendent Terry.

“You want to sack my direct superior!” PC McInally had spluttered.

“Yes, please.”

“I’ve got to go and ask him if you can have a demonstration calling for him to be sacked?”

“I believe so.” I said. And although he shook his head when he left the room, he was smiling.

The area covered by Socpa is covered by several police stations, and now PC McInally sat flicking through the 21 forms sorting out which would deal with which request. “This one is on the Belgravia patch; so is this one. Ah . . .” he pauses, “this one is Parks police.”

All in all, four police groups are needed to give me the permission I need: Charing Cross, Belgravia, Lambeth and the Parks police.

Nick Woodward from Belgravia gets in contact about the demos on his “patch”. He is altogether a different type of officer – he handles a moustache like he fought in the Battle of Britain and sports Coldstream Guards cufflinks. If Terry-Thomas had ever joined the Nazis, he would behave a little like Woodward. “Mark, Nick Woodward,” he bays down the phone.

“Hi, how are you?”

“I’m well, thank you,” he says. “Though I am a little disappointed that you have decided to waste our time in this manner. I’ve now got to open eight separate files on this.”

“As you know, I am very concerned about these issues,” I tell him. “As you can see, my first demonstration is to reduce police paperwork.”

“Yesss,” says Nick. But I know he really wants to say, “You’re a bloody shower.”

But permission is given, and this Monday I set off with the aim of doing 21 demonstrations in the Socpa zone in five hours and 15 minutes. Each demonstration would be 10 minutes long, with five minutes travelling time between them. The police agreed that I could have two assistants to keep time, check the route and carry the banners.

Sam is the banner caddy. Originally we wanted to use a golf bag to carry the placards. “Ah, Downing Street, sir,” he would have respectfully intoned. “You’ll need a ‘Hang Blair Banner’.” Unfortunately, we don’t know anyone with a golf bag, so I recondition my wheelie bin to carry the placards. Tony is my timer and route checker.

And this is how I do …

10am, Parliament Square: Demonstration to Reduce Police Paperwork

The place is swarming with cops who have turned up to police the unapproved Sack Parliament demonstration. On arrival in Parliament Square, we are all promptly photographed by the Forward Intelligence Team for police files. Big Ben strikes 10 and up the banner goes.

10.15am, Portcullis House (MPs’ offices): Demand that MPs Don’t Take Other Jobs – One is Enough!

We arrive two minutes early and the timer insists we keep the banner face down until we are officially allowed to start. A line of police officers face us. Tony the timer counts me in “Three, two, one, demonstrate!”

New police arrive, shoving warning notices into our hands about unlawful demonstrations. The cops who have been standing opposite us remonstrate with their newly arrived colleagues. “They’ve got permission, they’re OK.”

The new cops look confused and Sam opens the lid of the wheelie bin, where we have stuck copies of our police approval to the inside of the lid. The police peer into the wheelie bin, and say, “Right. OK then.” And skulk off.

10.30am, Tattershall Castle pub boat at the Embankment: Demonstration to demand that Pub Boats Give us Fishing Rights off the Bows or Give us Death!

10.45am, Hungerford Bridge: Demonstration to demand Trolls for London Bridges

Stopped by the police, who check permission. Cross the bridge shouting, “We need trolls! We are overrun with goats! These goats coming over here, stealing our jobs, getting the best houses! It wouldn’t happen if we had trolls. And I bet they would keep the underside clear of dead Italian bankers, too.” I really should get a proper job.

11am, Jubilee Gardens: Demonstration to Ban Static Mimes

Those mimes who dress up and paint themselves silver and then stand still for money – what is the point of a mime that does not move? To me, this is just an advanced form of begging. I sit immobile with a hat in front of me. No one puts any money in. I must have twitched and spoiled the purity of the moment.

11.15am, London Aquarium: Demonstration to Stop the Killer Rays – For Steve Irwin’s Sake!

The old GLC building, County Hall, was sold to a private consortium by Mrs Thatcher et al and is now private property. So I spoke with the landowners to try to get permission. “We don’t allow demonstrations,” said a clipped voice. “This is private property.”

“By the Thames embankment?”

“Yes, we own it and security will ask you to leave.”

Security are on the lookout on the day, but I sneak under the radar with a small unapproved banner. Sian arrives with tea and a cake; this one has “Stop The Killer Rays!” iced on it. We eat our cake in illegal protest pleasure.

11.30am, St Thomas’ Hospital: How are you going to stop MRSA when the soap dispensers in the gents were bust last week?

Just a quick one here, as time is tight.

11.45am, MI5 Building: Give MI5 a Nameplate

MI5 has no sign outside of it saying it is MI5, and I am convinced that they are not getting all of their post.

12 noon, Magistrates Court: Demand that Judges Wear Clown Wigs

Neil Goodwin is up before the judge today; his crime is dressing as Charlie Chaplin and standing in front of Downing Street with a sign saying “Not Allowed”. He was arrested for demonstrating without permission. He pleads guilty and is given a conditional discharge.

12.15pm, Channel 4: Big Brother is Shit

PC McInally had said, “What about the three nuns and the schoolkids who walk past? They could find the wording offensive.” So I take a covering banner just in case. Sam and Tony are to shout “Nun!” if they see anyone likely to take offence and I will cover the offending word with a banner saying “Not Very Good.”

12.30pm, Adam Smith Institute: Freemarketeers? You couldn’t survive without government contracts

After I have been shouting up at their offices for a bit, someone from the institute appears and says, “It’s the Adam Smith International Institute that gets all the DFID [Department for International Development] government work – different organisation.”

Shout “Sorry” to the three floors of office workers who are now looking out the window, scrape dignity off floor and go!

12.45pm, Department of Trade and Industry: Stop the Export of Torture Equipment

Self-explanatory.

1pm, New Scotland Yard: Sack Blair as Commissioner, Replace Him with PC McInally

Very popular choice as a lot of passing cops smile in support. Do a quick interview with Channel 4 News. “Don’t the government need this law in times like this?” they ask. “Are you implying that this law will help fight terrorism?”

“Yes.”

“If all that stands between us and a terrorist attack is a licence from the police, we are all doomed,” I reply.

1.15pm, St James Park tube station: Sack the Private Tube Companies.

Speaks for itself.

1.30pm, EU Commission: Take Kongra Gel Off the Terrorist Organisations List

Kongra Gel is a Kurdish organisation which the EU and UK have wrongly claimed is a terrorist group. Nick Woodward warned me that I could get arrested if I do anything to support Kongra Gel, as this would break the anti-terror law. Cunningly, my slogans are in Kurdish, which means he will have to get them translated to check.

1.45pm, QE2 Conference Centre: Stop Hosting the AGMs of Arms Companies

2pm, Westminster Abbey: God is Dead, Shut the Abbey

A bloke told me I had a first-class ticket to hell.

2.15pm, the Treasury: Gordon, Burn Everything Before the Tories Get Back In!

Shout out, “Tell him to destroy everything! And don’t you lot cooperate with them when they get in!” Raises a few smiles with the civil servants.

2.30pm, the Citadel: Cut the Ivy, It’s Spoiling the Concrete!

Ivy is horticultural terrorism! On our way to the next demo, we bump into police on horseback.

2.45pm, Department of Health: Stop Patricia Hewitt Speaking Like a Patronising Tw*t

“What are you demonstrating about?” grumbles a rather fierce-looking elderly gent with glasses and a frown that suggests he once worked in a prep school. I hold up the banner.”Oh, I quite agree. She’s awful,” he says before getting on a red omnibus home.

3pm, Parliament Square: Make Protesting Mandatory

The square is full of police, whose massed fluorescent jackets hurt the eyes and prob- ably breach EU light-pollution regulations. On Whitehall, the police explain that although I am allowed to demonstrate in Parliament Square, because the police are still arresting folk from the anti-war demonstration, there might be difficulty.

The cop in charge arrives. “Right then, I am assigning these two officers to you. They will escort you into the square, find a bit of it that isn’t in the thick of the melee, and make sure you can legally demonstrate without getting any hassle from any of the other cops.”

With that, I am given my own personal escort through a landscape of cops and protestors. They walk either side of me; I feel like the Noël Coward of protestors – “Demonstrating without a personal police escort? Simply not done this season, old boy.” A surreal end to a surreal day. However, I have now set the record: 21 demonstrations in five hours and 15 minutes in the Socpa zone. Anyone care to try to beat it?

Mass lone demonstrations are held every third Wednesday of every month in Parliament Square.
Application forms to demonstrate on http://www.markthomasinfo.com

‘Granarchist’ is cleared of harassing lab staff

Portsmouth news 27th September 2006

THE pensioner dubbed the ‘granarchist’ has been cleared of harassing workers at a controversial animal testing laboratory.

Pauline Nelson, 80, commonly known by her middle name Helen, walked free from court yesterday despite admitting using a megaphone to berate and insult staff at Wickham Laboratories, in Wickham, near Fareham.

Mrs Nelson was cleared along with her co-accused, Sarah Whitehead, 49. After the hearing, both criticised the police for charging them and vowed to continue protesting.

District Judge David Purcell threw out the case, brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, concluding that although the words used by the protesting pair were generally abusive, there was no evidence they had upset anyone in particular.

Mrs Nelson, ‘the granarchist’, from Brune Lane, Gosport, and Ms Whitehead, from Littlehampton, are both well-known to the labs for their frequent protests.

On May 25 they used loud-hailers to chant: ‘Wickham Labs – animal killers’ and ‘animal murderers’. Security staff filmed the two women from inside their grounds, where Ms Whitehead was heard telling staff: ‘You all have blood on your hands.’

Security manager Damian Watson also claimed they called staff ‘scum’ and ‘perverts’ but the film failed to capture this.

Police officers were called and Inspector Shaun Moore, the first on the scene, also claimed to hear the abusive words. After the pair refused to stop, they were arrested.

District Judge Purcell, sitting at Fareham Magistrates’ Court, stopped yesterday’s trial after deciding no-one had been caused harassment, alarm or distress – only ‘annoyance’ or ‘irritation’.

The judge accepted the words were abusive but said nobody had been harassed.

Afterwards, Mrs Nelson said: ‘Justice has been done. We will continue to use the megaphones and carry on protesting outside the labs. This has been a waste of taxpayers’ money. It’s ridiculous.’