giving food to the homeless "antisocial behaviour". Two Arrested
reclaim your food | 05.03.2008 16:09 | Free Spaces | Repression | London
On Sunday the third of march, two members of a grassroots Brixton based group calling itself Reclaim Your Food were arrested for distributing free food to the public. The grounds for their arrest was that their presence constituted antisocial behaviour.
On Sunday the third of march, two members of a grassroots Brixton based group calling itself Reclaim Your Food were arrested for distributing free food to the public. The grounds for their arrest was that their presence constituted antisocial behaviour. Since November Reclaim Your Food have been using surplus food to cook a Vegan meal, which they then distribute free of charge to the public in Brixton town square on Sunday afternoons. People who come and share in the meal include parents and their children, staff from local businesses, shoppers, general passers by, and the homeless. It is the presence of this last section of the community which the police claim gives them a reason and the power to forcibly prevent the event. Brixton town square falls under a provision of antisocial behaviour law called a dispersal zone. This gives the police powers to disperse groups of people within the zone if their behaviour or presence is deemed likely to cause harassment, alarm, intimidation, or distress, to members of the public. Despite the good natured atmosphere of the event, and the notable absence of any such antisocial consequences, the police at the scene argued that the very possibility of the homeless attending the event gives rise to the potential for drug use, and therefore antisocial behaviour. It was then argued that presence of reclaim your food encouraged the attendance of the homeless, and that the distribution of free food was therefore antisocial behaviour by proxy. On these grounds the police ordered that the group disperse, and when food continued to be served, two members of the group were arrested. After ten hours they were released without charge on police bail, subject to the condition that may not enter any part of the central Brixton dispersal zone.
reclaim your food
e-mail:
reclaimyourfood@hotmail.co.uk
Comments
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conditions
05.03.2008 17:25
Matt
asbo
05.03.2008 18:58
since then, advice has been given that says the conditions can be challenged in magistrates court and police rarely accept a challenge to asbo terms etc.
not sure if this actually counts as an asbo though, or just regular bailing conditions...
A
i dont think it can get any more ridiculous
05.03.2008 19:00
who & when authorised this bit of 'legislation'?!
sorry about this much sarcasm, what happened makes no bloody sense at all!
peoples republic of southwark
Discrimination
06.03.2008 08:55
Surely it is (by basic logic) more likely that rich people can afford to buy drugs.
Brian B
Same shit, different day
06.03.2008 11:47
when they don't like your actions, especially public actions of charity, pardon the pun, they pin whatever thought crime they dream up.
usually obstruct a PC, resist a PC, obstruct the highway, breach the peace, bollocks and more bollocks.
they try on any old shit at the maggot's magistrate's level of injustice. this particular level of corruption spits out 80% convictions and does not expect to be challenged.
bail conditions must be challenged in crown court, not maggot's. their mates cover up for each others shit and they actually bother pretend that they are somewhat following the law at the crowned bollocks level.
challenge on grounds of thought crime??? mens rea? guilty act? actus reus - guilty act?
forseeable harm to legitimise criminal bollocks? feeding a hungry belly? not all homeless people are drug addicts asnd that shows institutionalised decrimination against the poor and victimisation.
grounds for fighting bailing conditions are not a crime in law - which specific law - to feed people. can they provide any case law?
must be a legitimate aim to interfere with your human rights to freedom of expression (giving food) article 1o and freedom of assembly ( going into centre) article 11 HRA 1998. human rights act which all crown employees are bound by.
the police do not have unfettered powers no more than the maggots have any right to stomp all over our civil liberties as guaranteed in law, lest the courts have forgotten through too much cocaine, heroin and booze as they are generally known to be so fond of... talk about the pot calling the kettle black and people in glass houses throwning stones... if the poeple knew what the top brass of the cops and the idiots on the bench were really like, the mob would be spitting fire...
they bail and rebail as i kind of threat to hold over your head and play a cat and mouse game... hoping they can get you on a double offence hence proving in their weakened state of mind that you are indeed a serious threat to their war machine as a monkey wrench for peace, serving up the grub.
please be defiant and ercourage more folks to serve up and share as sharing is caring and vice versa.
the serious crime bill penned by jacki smith is the home snakes way of extending SOCPA legislation, the gag order on freedom speech, through desicrating freedom of assembly and expression without 6 days prior notice to sir ian blair - senior pisshead and chief murderer of jean charles de menezes, to all over land.
SOCPA 2005 has no prescribed powers of seizure nor of arrest and has somehow given the MET carte blanche to act as a police state.
Charity
e-mail:
charitysweet@hotmail.co.uk
Good stuff
06.03.2008 12:14
Boyd
Bail conditions are not the same thing as an ASBO
06.03.2008 15:01
reclaimyourfood