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.

Hertford Magistrates criticise Police

no freedom until all are free | 07.11.2006 17:37 | Animal Liberation | Repression | Social Struggles

On Monday (6th Nov), an animal rights protestor was up before the magistrates of Hertford for a breach of section 14 of the Public Order Act. Basically he had not done as an officer had told him during a demonstration at GSK’s site in Ware, Hertfordshire on 16th June, 2006. There were two sec.14 notices in question and while the protestor was found guilty of breaking the second, the magistrates called the first one, relating to a protest at GSK’s massive site at Stevenage, “unlawful and misconceived”.

The trial was a personal embarrassment for Chief Inspector Richard Harbin of Hertfordshire’s police, and his sidekick Insp. Julia Wheatley. In cross-examination, the defence solicitor Tim Walker of the firm Sonn Macmillian Walker, pushed both Harbin and Wheatley over their reasons and methods of imposing the sec. 14. Both were forced to admit that part of their orders were unlawful, this despite Harbin having 20 years experience in public order policing.

Furthermore, it was clear that Richard Harbin had authorised the Stevenage sec.14 in advance by himself, and not the Chief Constable as required by law. However, he did resort to the classic defence of “I don’t remember” and was unable to demonstrate a correctly signed copy of the order.

Without a correctly authorised notice, this means that the police had unlawfully restricted those attending the protest at Stevenage..

The day of protest had been organised by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty to protest at companies still involved in the notorious animal research laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences. The police were informed six days prior to the protests that they were going to happen and the venues. In their incompetence, they applied only one sec.14 order to the GSK (the multinational pharmaceutical GlaxoSmithKline) site at Stevenage. They forgot to invoke them for the others, though, as they admitted in court, they had powers to impose restrictions through out the county for the day.

Under cross-examination the reasons given by Harbin and Wheatley for imposing the restrictions was to “control the protestors” and to prevent noise. They invoked the clause “for the prevention of serious public disruption to the life of the community” as reason for applying the sec.14. However, this was also unjustified by the behaviour of the protestors who though noisy, remained peaceful in nature throughout the day.

The act states that the police must fear the organisers were planning disruption, and not individuals who might attend the protest, yet it was made clear by the police that they did not expect the organisers to be of trouble, but feared the latter (unjustified in our own experience). This was based on consultation of the Scotland Yard based National Public Order Intelligence Unit and Special Branch though not disclosed.

Mr Walker made the point that the police consider sec.14 as simply another tool to restrict the right of protest, and from the evidence of Harbin and Wheatley that was certainly appeared to be the attitude.

It was only when protestors turned up at the second site of the day, GSK in Ware, was it realised that there was not a sec.14 in place. Sergeant Mann, who was already at the site, rapidly imposed one on the grounds of fearing disruption to a local school. Well, initially Sgt (now Inspector) Mann stated it was because of all the other building around, but that excuse rapidly crumbled as it was demonstrated that his desire to control impact the noise of twenty-three protestors and four megaphones on surrounding buildings was simply not affected by restraining the protestors to remain in the centre of them all. This left a nearby school, but even then his evidence did not add up chronologically, the section 14 being imposed before he properly spoke to the headmaster who then said he would find out if exams would be disrupted.

The defendant at the time of his arrest was challenging the lawfulness of Mann’s imposition of a sec.14 and was unaware of any school nearby. However, the magistrates found that Sgt Mann’s sec. 14 was lawfully applied despite the distorted chronology of events, and thus found the defendant guilty of breaching it. Total fine and costs came to £800 for simply questioning the police.

Nevertheless, Hertfordshire’s top public order officers came out of the case having to admit in open court that their actions on the day were unlawful, and were criticised by the magistrates.

no freedom until all are free

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. HLS there too — unnecessary
  2. Ouch! — laura
  3. Protest. In Stevenage!!!!!?? — Inspired
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