Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Coronet Five Not Guilty after Anarchist Bookfair Trial - report

Coronet Court Report | 03.11.2006 15:58 | Indymedia | Repression | London

The Crown Court case against five people arrested after last year's Anarchist bookfair concluded yesterday with the last of the defendants being found not guilty.

One year on from the incident outside the Coronet pub in the Holloway Road, London, the trial at Snaresbrook Crown court began on October 16th, with five people facing the serious charge of Affray under the Public Order Act 1986.

Following the lengthy testimony of almost twenty police officers, one of the defendants was acquitted after it was found there was, in fact, no case to answer. A shockingly truthful testimony from his arresting officer had made it clear that the charges against him were completely unfounded, and that he had, in effect, been arrested by mistake.

Subsequently two other defendants had the charges against them dropped down from Affray to Section 4 (Fear or Provocation of Violence) of the Public Order Act (nb Section 4 allows a maximum prison sentence of six months, while Affray has a maximum of three years).

After a marathon three week trial, the jury yesterday returned not guilty verdicts on the four remaining defendants.

The trial saw some extraordinary admissions from police witnesses, such as one officer who freely admitted writing things about the incident, which he hadn’t even seen, in his police notebook. He said that other officers had told him what had happened later in the police canteen.

Another officer made a chilling admission, which drew gasps from the jury, when he said if he had to push people into the path of oncoming traffic, then so be it. He also said he didn't care whether people ran, walked or crawled away from the scene.

Numerous significant inconsistencies were revealed throughout the testimony of the 19 police officers, and several photographs taken by one of the defendants were used to contradict the police officers’ version of events. At one point it seemed that officers closed ranks, with some refusing to answer simple questions like "did you see any police officers push anyone?"

The crown prosecution opened their case against the defendants with the testimony of the manager of the Coronet pub. However his evidence did little more than confirm that there had been a small disturbance in the pub, when a small group of people had set up their own mini sound system. The staff had called the police, but he stressed the people responsible for the disturbance had left the pub with their equipment before the police arrived on the scene, and that everything else in the pub was orderly, and really no different from a normal weekend, apart from more people being present. He also said it was the police who advised the closing of the pub, and that people left in an orderly fashion without causing any trouble inside the pub.

It also emerged that after the first officers arrived on the scene and advised the closure of the pub (which the manager said could hold 6-700 people), TSG riot police and dog units were requested to attend, well before any trouble occurred. In other words, the officers knew that clearing the pub of hundreds of people drinking on a Saturday night was a risky move. Indeed the manager of the pub said the police wanted to wait for backup to arrive before proceeding. Unsurprisingly during the trial, the sense of this decision to close the pub was called into question, as too were the circumstances of the first arrest, which it appeared was in fact illegal.

But perhaps one of the most striking errors was the calling of the only non-police prosecution witness who saw the events outside the Coronet pub. It seems the officer in charge of the case had mistakenly assumed this witness to be a PCSO (police community support officer), and thus allowed him to write his own statement. The statement was written around ten days after the incident outside the pub, but falsely dated as being written the day after the events. In court it became clear that the witness was not in fact a PCSO, and despite saying he had extensive experience with the security services, military and police, he turned out to be simply an unemployed ex-security guard who had set up his own 'community support' group with a few of his friends! His somewhat confusing testimony however proved useful to the defence when he said the only reason for his being there was to assist officers, and that despite this, he himself was assaulted and pushed back by police.

A longer report on the trial will be produced soon, which includes much more detail. But for now it suffices to say a serious miscarriage of justice has been avoided. The defendants’ experiences together show how easy it can be for police officers to arbitrarily arrest innocent people and subject them to a stressful ordeal lasting a full year. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is what one of the defendants said during the trial, another was guilty of nothing more than making a monkey pose at one particularly large officer, others gave evidence saying that they were jumped on and arrested as they respectively took photographs of the scene, told officers to calm down, and went to the aid of a woman who had been pushed to the ground; one even testified how he was punched repeatedly while handcuffed in the back of a police van and another recounted how he was hooded whilst lying handcuffed in the street.

Related to the arrests are two revealing insights into the minds of some officers that emerged during the trial. One officer categorically stated that there were no innocent bystanders present outside the Coronet pub that night, while another stated he fully believed the people outside the pub were prepared for the incident (i.e. had planned it) simply because he saw a couple of people with camcorders and some with cameras that had "big lenses"...

Similar inaccurate prejudices and crazy conclusion jumping was displayed by the media, perhaps fed by the court reporter who was present on the first day of the jury trial. An article, which appeared in a local Bristol daily, screamed ‘Anarchists join forces with football hooligans to fight police'!

For note, there were in fact seven arrests that night just over a year ago. One person had their charges dropped after it became clear they had been assaulted by one of the officers, and another accepted a caution for swearing. Two other points worthy of mention is that throughout the trial, the five defendants were allowed by the judge to sit within the court room behind their defence barristers, instead of being shut off behind glass security screens and forced to wear headphones in the dock (much to the initial annoyance of the prosecution). Also, the day before this year’s anarchist bookfair, the prosecution tried to re-impose bail conditions to prevent the defendants entering the Holloway road area - a request the judge immediately denied.

Well, the three-week trial has now finished and the five are free, but the truth is that that the trial should never have happened.

Before their arrests none of the defendants knew each other. Different ages, different backgrounds, different interests. But now after a year of facing a possible three-year prison sentence they've learnt a lot about each other, about solidarity, and have become friends. It's interesting to note that while one person was pronounced not guilty last week, and three more yesterday lunchtime, it was only at the end of the day, when the fifth and final not guilty verdict was returned, that the celebrations truly began.

Finally all five have expressed their gratitude to everyone who has provided support over the last year, and in particular over the last few weeks.

Coronet Court Report

Comments

Display the following 4 comments

  1. leonhard — tony
  2. Suing the police? — manos
  3. court records — nowun
  4. still acab — me
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech