barbara was sentenced to two weeks imprisonment by district judge snow last week and has served nearly a week in hmp holloway. the imprisonment was supposedly under the bail act as she had refused to comply with a police bail appointment at charing cross police station for what was originally a socpa offence. in the court, the socpa offence was dropped, a public order offence substituted, and the bail sentence was handed down

including time served in police detention and normal early release on license and parole rules, barbara was due to be released this morning. but one of her supporters at parliament square, 'charity sweet' had issued a writ of habeus corpus at the high court which was heard in an unorthodox 'closed session' earlier this week, and adjourned for an oral hearing this morning.

suddenly, officers at hmp holloway told barbara she would be released a day early (on thursday) and so when she attended the high court hearing this morning she was already (again unorthodoxly) released, and in effect the habeus corpus was no longer relevant. instead, the high court agreed to add the matter of her imprisonment to an ever-growing judicial review which she is pushing through as an urgent matter, and which also includes a human rights declaration of incompatibility on sections 132-138 of socpa.

after the closed habeus corpus session on wednesday, charity sweet was given a document from mr justice owen, where following consideration of the evidence, he stated that "it seems highly unlikely that mrs barbara tucker was sentenced to two weeks imprisonment when she appeared before DJ snow at the city of westminster magistrates' court on 11th april" and that the "basis upon which she is currently detained at hmp holloway must be established"

the forthcoming judicial review will have to consider judge snow's "unlikely" decision and they will hopefully find it (and one hopes, him!) incompatible with human rights.

once again, it seems the only people doing law around parliament square are the peace protestors themselves. with police, magistrates, members of parliament and private security guards breaking laws all around them, the continuing level of harassment is astonishing.