London Indymedia

SOCPA - the dirt behind the imprisonment of barbara tucker

rikki | 18.04.2008 11:52 | SOCPA | Repression | London

a high court hearing and a document given 'charity sweet' blow a huge hole in the decision to imprison her - now the matter of her imprisonment will be added to the forthcoming judicial review of various aspects of the constitutional campaign of harassment against her.




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.

rikki
- e-mail: rikkiindymedia[@t]gmail(d0t)com
- Homepage: http://www.socpa-movie.blogspot.com

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Anyone know the outcome?

18.04.2008 12:36

This was listed for 1000 hours today:

COURT 1
Before LORD JUSTICE HOOPER and Mr Justice Maddison
Friday 18 April, 2008
At 10 o'clock
Applications for Permission
CO/3557/2008 The Queen on the application of Sweet v HMP Holloway

Anyone know the outcome? Reading Mr Justice Owen's order, I wonder if he though that Mrs Sweet was incorrect in her statement that Mrs Tucker was sentenced to two weeks for the Bail Act offence and adjourned to allow enquiries to be made with the mags court.

Mike


Police state

18.04.2008 12:46

Well done to Babs and friends for continuing to expose the wholesale corruption, collusion, criminal conspiracy and brutality of Whitehall, the Metropolitan Police and the courts. Make no mistake, this is a politically-motivated and unlawful campaign of intimidation and harassment, and shows beyond reasonable doubt that we are effectively living in a police state under New Labour. Given all this, is it really surprising that Gordon Brown should welcome the Olympic torch into Downing Street?
I think it's about time the true criminals were held to account, in the Hague. Perhaps after a few years in Guantanamo, or in a Chinese jail.

Paul Hussey


the outcome

18.04.2008 13:29

sorry if it wasn't clear

this morning, the high court agreed to add the matter to the current (ever-growing) judicial review as they fely this would be a more appropriate forum than the current habeus corpus given that barbara had been freed (miraculously a day earlier)

barbara will be back at the high court on monday pressing for an urgent hearing of the judicial review

rikki


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