My experience of arrest
Anabelle Kirsten-Marn | 08.08.2004 17:49
I have been asked to write this contribution to show the world what is taking place in Britain today.
I am only an occasional reader of indymedia and I have never placed a contribution before but I want the world to know of my experiences with the British judicial system.
I have been involved in work to prevent exploitation of and cruelty to our brother animals for the past seven years. I started out after listening to a speaker at University and became active in the campaigns against various establishments. In the past 18 months the work has become the entire focus of my life, I work with a small autonomous group based in Surrey and we take various actions on a daily basis.
On Monday at 5am I was awakended at my brother's house by three policeman in my room, they dragged me from the bed and arrested me, when my brother tried to intervean he was sprayed in the face with pepper spray. I was taken to Guildford Police Station and questioned for five hours. The police had papers showing my mobile phone movements for the past year, all my bank account details, a photocopy of my passport (which is at my parents house) details on ferry crossing I had taken to France and Belgium and photos of me going back nearly two years.
After questioning I was released, since then my father's company has been visited by the Inland Revenue for a full audit, Customs and Excise for VAT checks and he has been stopped in his car no less than five times. My mother has also been followed.
Conversations between the police and my Father indicate he has also been the subject of surveilance as they were aware of trip he took to Belgium to visit his brother's war grave.
My brother's employer (a charity) have been contacted and warned about him. He has received a written warning.
My work will continue but not in the same way.
You are being watched, the access to information they have is mind blowing.
I have been involved in work to prevent exploitation of and cruelty to our brother animals for the past seven years. I started out after listening to a speaker at University and became active in the campaigns against various establishments. In the past 18 months the work has become the entire focus of my life, I work with a small autonomous group based in Surrey and we take various actions on a daily basis.
On Monday at 5am I was awakended at my brother's house by three policeman in my room, they dragged me from the bed and arrested me, when my brother tried to intervean he was sprayed in the face with pepper spray. I was taken to Guildford Police Station and questioned for five hours. The police had papers showing my mobile phone movements for the past year, all my bank account details, a photocopy of my passport (which is at my parents house) details on ferry crossing I had taken to France and Belgium and photos of me going back nearly two years.
After questioning I was released, since then my father's company has been visited by the Inland Revenue for a full audit, Customs and Excise for VAT checks and he has been stopped in his car no less than five times. My mother has also been followed.
Conversations between the police and my Father indicate he has also been the subject of surveilance as they were aware of trip he took to Belgium to visit his brother's war grave.
My brother's employer (a charity) have been contacted and warned about him. He has received a written warning.
My work will continue but not in the same way.
You are being watched, the access to information they have is mind blowing.
Anabelle Kirsten-Marn
Comments
Hide the following 19 comments
explain please
08.08.2004 18:30
AR
Anabelle
08.08.2004 18:47
All of us that know her and have heard the detailed description of her experiences at first hand are deeply shocked she is a kind person with a deep affection for animals of all kinds ( I have seen her cry at the sight of dead rabbit in the road).
She has requested that no further details are published and we have reluctantly agreed to her wishes. The fight goes on for the rest of us.
Friend
half a story
08.08.2004 19:17
I personally can't see the point in posting, claiming that you have been arrested at 5.00am dawn with 3 cops in your room, interviewed for 5 hrs, and not letting readers know why the hell they were there, why you got arrested and what you were interviewed about?
bookworm
Dont get too paranoid
08.08.2004 20:29
You say:
"You are being watched, the access to information they have is mind blowing."
It seems all they have done is requested your mobile phone records, done a search of travel records (perhaps picking up your Dad's if you were at the same address) and got a photocopy of your passport from the passport office for some strange reason. This isn't so "mind blowing" these days. It's very strange they would show you all this info. except if it was just to scare you (and your small group of activists) off. It appears to have worked.
Hammy
We are related!
08.08.2004 22:53
He was my Grandpa (SIS's man in Afganistan). We thought we had traced all the Kirsten-Marn's. Your family is obviously not registerred on any public database (all hush-hush and x-directory I suppose - but you can't be too careful nowadays).
B. K-M.
Hope you and your family are in too much trouble with the Peelers.
Benny Kirsten-Marn
Can I ask a Question Anabelle?
09.08.2004 00:23
Did the Police have CCTV footage of you going into shops?
I am thinking the cops might have mistaken you for a big-time shop-lifter. Tell me I am wrong.
F.
Fagan
There's life after shop-lifting?
09.08.2004 10:27
It's weird Anabelle, they followed my mum too, and she never nicked anything more than a packet of polos in her life. She loves animals though. And now I am straight I wanna do soom directomundo actionie.
I can give you the number of my counsellor if you have the same habit.
Another reason for all the attention could be your old man's business. Is he smugging chocolates or something a bit stronger in from Belgium?
Oliver
attention
09.08.2004 11:14
SPECIAL BRANCH POLICE ASSHOLES AND FASCISTS ARE NOT ALOWED IN INDYMEDIA!
policewankers
Cop/fash aint gettin no smarter.
09.08.2004 18:06
Hammy
Shop lifting ?
09.08.2004 18:07
We talked Annabell into posting the piece because we felt it was important for the community to know about what she went through. It may be that others are far stronger than her and perhaps not so intimidated but she has worked nearly every day for animal rights over the past few years and done a lot more than most of the tossers who post here.
She was picked up because of her involvement in a campaign of visits to those who work in labs, she believes in facing them and telling them of her views. Some of these people objected and that led to the police arrest.
The CCTV film is not just of her visiting shops but includes cameras targeted on her as she walked through shopping centres, while she walked her dog on the common, and even of her watching her partner playing netball.
The mobile phone records were highly detailed and include a map showing her movements through the country. The photocopy of her passport was not of the original document but of the one sitting in her parents house (it is damaged and she could see the damage on the photo). Every e-mail she had sent and received over months was there.
She is scared witless and realises she has been under intense and detailed survailence for some time, some of the information they have is highly personal and she found it embarrasing and humiliating.
Events like this are happening now. Our group has changed its entire operation. No mobile calls, no emails, only face to face meetings from now on. We pay cash for us much as possible and avoid credit cards.
Please, please take this seriously.
Friend
Well done
09.08.2004 18:38
We are all becoming aware of the increased interest in the movement by the police over the last few months and we must be vigilant.
Sophie
Security
09.08.2004 19:02
But if you are not breaking the law or planning to, which is the vast majority of us clean-noses, then there is nothing at all to worry about anyway, and let the police waste their time on survellance, if they are so stupid.
What gets me is that the police would arrest someone who hasn't broken a law and show them all their so called evidence, including the contents of CCTV, just to pull a scary caper. They aren't competant enough to do such things without shooting themselves in the foot. Abd stuff like that is only going further politicise activists.
Hammy
Tip
09.08.2004 19:51
Preparation: make sure you are not under surveillance, covert/overt. For belts and braces approach: wear a disguise, have a change of clothes into which you can slip after activity.
On demos etc. when you get thrown in the back of cop wagons, they dont lock the doors. Its obvious why. In the confusion of an action/demo day there's too much chance of losing the key, or the cop with the key - these coppers are not in the top intelectual quartile.
So the doors can be opened and the captured sprung. Beautiful! 'Cheers mate' they shout,and offsky - free as a bird. Sometimes there is an inner cage. Same principle - no key-lock. And sometimes there is a lever lock - a large handle to the left. Pull it down. Again, Cheers mate, they will say, and scarper.
The ertswhile captive must scarper at great speed because cops in front of the van will be on the case. And any plain clothsers in view will have gone overt and sprung into action - a reflex even the most disciplined plain-clothser can't surpress. I observed one forced into pursuit by his nickin instinct - dressed in a very tidy beige safari suit. He was sporting a pipe but no pith helmet - that would have stood out too much - but his cover was blown.
Hammy
confused
09.08.2004 19:59
No offense intended, but to me, this article came across as an attempt to scare activists than anything else.
Dont give in to state bullying - it's a betrayal of the animals and every other activist.
Ps
I've spent time in Surrey police cells so I know they can be right bastards, but hey...
GJQ
you scared?
09.08.2004 21:30
Well, if I was 'too' paranoid I would have the local police station constantly under surveillance, their shit caught in a gutter net in the drainage system for analysis, and have their cars followed, phones tapped, girlfriends/boyfriends taken in for a semen snatch at an undisclosed location, mail read courtesy of subversive postie, emails intercepted by my hacking buddies, houses watched, a list of what crap they bought at sainsburys during the week courtesy of subversive youth work experience friends, their smelly shoe sizes and shoe prints taken, eye colours logged, movements watched from outer space etc ... All this makes some people 'hard' ... ahum.
But thankfully I'm not such a frigging pervert.
Moral: Don't worry kids, just get on with THE ACTION!! That is all that matters, but do remember to use your heads and to keep ur heads down when needed ;)
Anony^mouse
hey Hammy or even 'Henry' ..
09.08.2004 23:45
/,.': - would only be rejected.
Thanks for the crap advice.
beserka
Passport photocopies
10.08.2004 15:30
As for the other stuff - it's clear that they are clamping down on AR at the moment. Probably 'cos it has been pretty successful. I would have thought they would be worried about you confronting people involved in animal abuse - it could be seen as threatening behaviour and they probably think you have been involved in taking direct action against those individuals and their property.
If they could prove that you had been you would have been charged. Because they showed you the extent of their surveillance it's clear they haven't got enough evidence and they are trying to frighten you / threaten you that they will 'catch' you in the end.
It must be terrifying to find out how much your personal life has been monitored in this way. This is a valuable lesson for anyone involved in 'covert' direct action of how much surveillance you will be put under if you are suspected of being involved in serious / politically sensitive actions.
Thanks for posting it.
Care-full
Wrong
10.08.2004 17:05
Hammy
Apol... to Hammy
11.08.2004 00:44
Once bitten never trolled again ..
Liberty 4 all,
Peace to Hammy.
Beserker