The charges were formally dropped on Thursday afternoon, and a CPS statement on the decision claimed that as the injunction had now effectively collapsed it was ‘no longer in the public interest’ to continue the prosecutions. However, as two activists are still being prosecuted for alleged breaches of the injunction that just doesn’t add up.

PORKY PIES

Campaigners suspect that the real reason is to be found closer to the collapse of the case against three protestors accused of holding an ‘illegal assembly’ outside the factory. There, the district judge ordered the removal of Public Interest Immunity from police evidence. Police radio logs from the day would have been read out in open court. Rather than do that, the prosecution dropped the charges halfway through the case. What can have been so sensitive about that information? Andrew Beckett, spokesman for the campaign, is in no doubt: “The police simply do not want their dishonesty and willingness to make unlawful arrests examined even in the limited forum of court.”

May 31st was the first mass demo outside the factory since the exclusion zone had been imposed by the interim injunction. Around 120 activists arrived at the factory to be confronted with an equally large number of police. Prior to this all demos outside the factory had been entirely peaceful.

The first arrests were made as a police line pushed the crowd towards a steep drop on to a railway line (since declared unsafe by Sussex police themselves!). In a provocative move, the first arrest was of eighty-year-old civil rights celebrity John Catt who was dragged to the ground by four police officers for having the insolence to step off a grass verge. Next up for a free trip to Hollingbury nick was his daughter, and co-incidentally a solicitor who ended up getting charged with assaulting the police. As the crowd resisted this attack, six more arrests were made. Police were seen to be deliberately targeting prominent activists from the campaign.

The number of arrests was later used to bolster the case for an injunction in the High Court (See SchNEWS 492). The fact the police made eight arrests was used as evidence for the violence of protesters!

Following the collapse of the injunction (See SchNEWS 531), ‘Naming of the dead’ and V-for-Victory demonstrations have been held and the pressure on EDO to get out of Brighton for good is growing.

Get yerselves along to the next one, a ‘Citizen’s weapons inspection’ on the anniversary of the war, March 21st at 4pm. See www.smashedo.org.uk for more

See  http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news535.htm for the rest of this weeks issue including an update on the Barcelona situation, food labeling in The US of A, GP surgery sell offs and more.