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Pink Castle Siege Ends - Battle Lost? - Not Yet!

Nero | 16.05.2002 20:43

Police act as private army while farmer plants GM maize.
Four arrested. Castle not evicted. This is not over yet!

PINK CASTLE - LATEST NEWS
9pm Thursday 16th May

At around 11am on Thursday 16th, Charles Foot, followed by police, drove a tractor at speed into the enterance of the castle grounds. People quickly moved into block him and locked on to the tractor using arm tubes. Police sprung out of bushes and surrounded the site. Some tried to enter but were held back and read Section 6 notices by those inside. The police made no further attempt to enter .

While this was going on, four more tractors entered from the other side of the field and began to spray and plough the field. Some people managed to get to the tractors dispite the police trying to prevent people from leaving the castle grounds. Reports indicate that one of the ploughing tractors and one doing the spraying was locked on to.

Half a mile away, other police officers were forming an illegal barrier to prevent local residents of Littlemoor from coming to the rescue. Nether-the-less, and thirty determined locals managed to evade police and make it to the site (later, at least twenty locals were seen digging the freshly sown seeds from the ground).

Back on the field, another tractor entered and was shortly followed by the tractor carrying the seed drill. Nobody could get near it as it was accompanied by a cordon of police and others were still laying seige to the castle. The operation used about fifty police officers and an helecopter for about three hours - that's quite a lot of public money to provide a private army for a farmer planting a GM crop that 77% of the population would like banned!

In all there were four protesters arrested (by 2pm). Olaf, Will, Rich and Liz were all taken to Weymouth Police Station. At this stage we know that at least Will has been released (at around 8pm). We expect the others to be released shortly. Will was charged with Aggravated Trespass (Sec68 of the 94'CJA) as well as disorderly conduct! This last charge shows that the authorities have been paying attention to the lessons of Scotland and other GM related court cases which show that they can not convict on Aggravated Trespass or Criminal damage.

THOSE STILL AT THE CASTLE REQUEST
MORE PEOPLE TO JOIN THEM
THIS IS NOT OVER YET!

visit pink castle website for directions

new site moble 07773 640159

Nero
- e-mail: thecastle@sayhi.to
- Homepage: http://www.sayhi.to/thecastle

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