A-Spire Press Release – Appeals for Witness Statements

On Sunday 24th November at about 3.15am as many as 100 police officers raided the Aspire Building at Buckingham House, Otley road. The raid was undertaken without any warning and was obviously planned well in advance – as indicated by the number of officers involved. In order to gain entry, police used a battering ram on the doors and indiscriminately used pepper spray and threw CS gas canisters inside a building which contained a large number of party goers.

Fortunately no one was injured in the ensuing panic, thanks mainly to the safety procedures put in place by the organisers. Many witnesses report unprovoked brutal violence by the police. No official reason was given for the raid and no warrant was served.

20 people were arrested for public order offences. 16 were released without charge and the remaining four have been charged with affray. It is our opinion, based on witness statements that the circumstances of these arrests are highly questionable.

The building was previously empty and has been squatted. It is being used as a social centre whilst providing a home for a dozen or so homeless people.

The centre has been operating for two weeks offering a wide range of workshops including women’s self defence, horticulture, theatre skills, puppet making.
It has hosted talks and film shows on environmental issues, human rights and international issues such as Argentina and Palestine.

It also features a vegan café a children’s area, an indoor skate ramp and a performance space.

All of this is run by a non-hierarchical collective of volunteers from the local community and all paid for purely from donations.

The social centre has been very popular with hundreds of people taking part in the various activities on a daily basis – thus confirming the need for this form of self organised “free space” and drawing attention to the amount of empty unused property that could be put to much better use.

The Aspire Collective is planning to leave the building on Tuesday 26th November, as agreed by the building owners.

The party was a culmination of several weeks of hard work by all concerned and featured a degree of organisation and concern for the comfort and safety of those attending that would put most city centre nightclubs to shame. There was no trouble at the event and we had received no complaints about noise or disturbance.

Bearing these facts in mind, we find it very difficult to understand the reasons behind the police action. It needlessly endangered hundreds of people who were committing no crime and causing no disturbance in an illegal act of gross irresponsibility. We should also like to stress that squatting is a civil rather than a criminal matter and the case was already being dealt with by the courts.

We would also like to express our amazement that the police felt it necessary to imply so many officers, some drafted in from other towns, to conduct such a large scale operation with no obvious purpose other than to illicit fear and violence on innocent people.

We suspect that the police will claim they were responding to an incident – however the numbers of officers involved and their level of co-ordination clearly indicates that this was planned well in advance.
 info@a-spire.org.uk