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Four charged over crane protest

bbc paster | 08.10.2003 11:41

The bbc beats indymedia to protest story, again.

Four charged over crane protest

The bbc beats indymedia to protest story, again.

Four charged over crane protest


The protesters have been on the crane since Monday morning
Four people have been charged with aggravated trespass after a demonstration on top of a crane on the construction site of Terminal Five at Heathrow Airport.
Nigel Hill, 39, from Stafford, 33-year-old William Campbell, 25-year-old Julie Ryder and Emily O'Byrne, 21, all from Matlock, Derbyshire, have been released on bail.

They are due to appear at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on 17 October.

Airports operator BAA said eight demonstrators got through the site perimeter at about 0730 BST on Monday.

Four still remain and have said they may stay for several days.

Hounslow Against New Terminals (HANT) - which includes protesters against airport expansion from across the UK as well as local residents - has claimed responsibility for the protest.

It said the protesters occupied the crane to demonstrate against the government's "aggressive airport expansion programme" and plans for a sixth terminal and third runway at Heathrow.


bbc paster

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Sad but true.

08.10.2003 18:04

Indymedia people had the story - before it happened - but due to lack of resources and available people (and various other excuses) failed to act quickly enough to beat the beeb.

When organising a direct action, media stuff is often neglected, especially alternative media as everyone assumes somebody else is on the case with it. In this case however, people involved had sought somebody to film the action but dates weren't firm and the person was unavailable when the action happened.

What would be great would be a permanent phone to newswire or sms to newswire facility so that the people up the crane could have made their own report. Then the beed wouldn't beat us ;-)

P.s. Personally I am not worried that the beeb got there first. It means that the people doing media work for the action were successful and got the issue out in the mainstream. Indymedia doesn't have to race the mainstream media, just fill in the gaps and unspin the spin.

v