Dan Wadham loses status for supporting SeaShepherd

ALF SG | 15.04.2010 07:20 | SHAC | Animal Liberation | South Coast

AR prisoner Dan Wadham has had his prison 'enhanced' status removed in a petulant move by the Prision.

Dan was organising a sponsored walk in his 'enhanced' wing in Camp Hill prison to raise money for Sea Shepherd the anti whaling group.

In a petulant response to Dan's challenging move and unwillingness to be ground down by state oppression Dan has lost his enhanced status and been placed on a normal wing.

Dan has three more years to serve.

ALF SG

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This is intersting but...

15.04.2010 08:10

...three sentences do not make a news article!
Much more infomration, please.
Did he get to do the sponsored walk? What exactly was the response from the screws? How did they find out what he was up to? How did they go about removing his status, what prison rule did they claim they were doing it under, and how did he find out about this?

Annie Citizen

More....

15.04.2010 09:50

Dan Wadham (A5705AA)
HMP Camp Hill, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 5PB

In January 2009 Dan was sentenced to 5 years in relation to charges in connection with HLS campaigns. (One of the UK SHAC 7) Support page
Birthday: 3rd February

What you can send: Only cheques and postal orders can be sent in made out to ‘HMPS’ with Dan’s name and number and the sender’s details on reverse.

** Updated 14th April – Dan has had his Enhanced Status removed because he raised money for Sea Shepherd whilst in prison!**

Letter from Dan, 16th November 2009

Dear Chums,

Thanks for your letters. I’m useless at responding but they are appreciated.

I’ve been doing loads of running recently, (well I can’t let an old fogey like Gregg beat me, can I?), I’m on the enhanced wing which has a path around the garden that is my personal running track. I’ve actually decided to run a sponsored marathon for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the New Year. I need help though, to collect sponsors and raise money and to publicise the run, so if you want to help, get in touch! That’s all for now.

Love Dan x

http://www.arprisoners.org/dan-wadham

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Background

15.04.2010 09:57

Three animal rights activists launched a terrifying attack on a family, including a 75-year-old grandmother, for having a pro-hunting sticker on their car.

Heather Nicholson, Natasha Avery and Daniel Wadham jumped out of their car while stuck in a traffic jam to spit, screamed abuse and banged on the windows of their victims.

At one stage they hit a 75-year-old grandmother and tried to open the car doors to drag her 21-year-old grandson into the street. It was only the intervention of outraged members of the public that halted the attack.

Avery and Nicholson, both 38, are founding members of the controversial group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) which has instigated the hate campaign against companies involved in animal testing.

Together with Wadham, 19, they pleaded guilty to one charge of affray at Kingston Crown Court today.

The driver suddenly heard a bang on her window and a woman screaming: 'F+++ing scum, f+++ing perverts,' while Wadham was banging on the side of the car. One woman shouted: 'Get that sticker off your window.'

The 21-year-old shouted to his mother: 'Just drive,' to shake off the extremists. The traffic lights turned green and the family drove off but the extremists got back in their car to pursue.

When both cars had to stop at the next set of traffic lights on the A316 the attack began again. Mrs A tried to lock all her doors, but was unable to, and Nicholson launched another hate-filled rant screaming: 'F+++ing perverts, f+++ing scum.'

Mrs A was 'in tears and shaking' as Avery shouted similar obscene abuse at the passenger window. Mrs Nicholson then reached in the passenger door to pull Mrs A's son out of the car by his legs - but he kicked to stop her.

When the 75-year-old put her left arm out to help her grandson Nicholson hit her arm and Nicholson and Wadham spat in the 21-year-old's face and on the passenger door.

Other motorists came to the rescue of the family with one driver shouting to the extremists: 'If you want to start, start on me,' before police arrived to arrest all three.

Nicholson and Avery have a long string of previous convictions mostly relating to public order offences and animal rights protests

BackGround

Is this even real?

15.04.2010 10:20

I am pretty sceptical about this as there are some glaring inaccuracies in the original post;

a) A marathon isn't a sponsored walk.
b) Dan got a 5 year sentence and has served 17 months. Seeing as in the UK you get released halfway through your sentence he hasn't actually had three years left to serve at any point... at this moment he actually has 13 months left to serve.

Skeptic

Solidarity

15.04.2010 10:31

This is outrageous. He was raising money for Sea Shepherd UK, who are a registered charity. I am sure that if it was for a non animal related charity this wouldn't have happened.

I personally don't want Dan losing his enhanced status for nothing so I will be sending a donation to Sea Shepherd in solidarity.

If any one else wants to show him support then please donate too:

http://www.justgiving.com/DanWadham

Sea Shepherd Supporter

I think it is right

15.04.2010 12:18

The message about his status change is on his support webpages. It is outrageous.- They really have it in for AR prisoners.

I'm not sure about the automatic release at 50% - I think that depends on behaviour and the parole board - you end up on licence for the balance of sentence anyhow and you can get recalled etc

Solidarity and donate to SeaShepherd

Vegie

Parole etc

15.04.2010 13:53

The website is correct. If you are sentenced for something which happened before 5/4/05 you are in the regime governed by the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and if your sentence is 4years + you have to apply for parole or you won't be released until 2/3 of the sentence. But if the incident is on or after that date you come under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and will automatically be released at half way, with a licence that runs for the whole of the rest of your sentence.

Prisoners Fightback

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spelling nitpick - "loses" not "looses"

15.04.2010 20:34

can someone correct the heading and delete this comment!

it should be "loses" not "looses".

sorry for the pedantry.

and good luck to Dan! fuck the prison system!

Roget

other nitpicks

15.04.2010 22:51

Sorry to be a pain, just a few other things to change:

* Used the word "petulant" twice.

* Put an hyphen inbetween "anti whaling"

* Need to put a comma in this sentence
...ground down by state oppression, Dan has lost his enhanced status...

Kev

Yeah - it's the punctuation and syntax that matters....

16.04.2010 07:32

Stuff the fact that an activist has been 'punished' for organising a charity fundraiser - the spelling is off!!!!

Distraction watch

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re: punctuation and syntax

16.04.2010 12:06

Well I think Kev was being a bit OTT and was maybe trolling, but you're right, it does detract from the important issues when there are glaring typos in the title. It doesn't really matter to me, but I don't think it's a bad thing to make Indymedia look a bit more professional. For one thing it can confuse people who don't have English as their first language.

I'm fully in support of Dan - he shouldn't even be in prison in the first place - so please can an Indymedia admin correct this minor error and delete my comments!

Roget

A little info is...

16.04.2010 21:20

"The website is correct. If you are sentenced for something which happened before 5/4/05 you are in the regime governed by the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and if your sentence is 4years + you have to apply for parole or you won't be released until 2/3 of the sentence. But if the incident is on or after that date you come under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and will automatically be released at half way, with a licence that runs for the whole of the rest of your sentence."

The 1991 act was changed last year to bring in line sentences with the 2003 act but it doesn't count for sex offenders and violent offences. Blackmail doesn't kick in the 1991 act and he will do half.

"Stuff the fact that an activist has been 'punished' for organising a charity fundraiser - the spelling is off!!!!"

You will find that he will be punished in more ways than having his enhanced status revoked. He will now be on a heavy lock down when he finally gets released and that's why others just get their heads down, do their time.. Campaigning for jailed ar activists will be squashed.

same old

Thanks to Indymedia for changing the word "loose" to "lose". Poor Dan.

17.04.2010 04:30

Whoever wrote that should ask other people to write things in future.

As for Dan losing his enhanced status just for this, that sucks. All kinds of things go on in prison and punishing Dan over a sponsored walk is a bit much. Just shows how far HLS tentacles reach!

anon

Just to say

17.04.2010 10:43

I'm surprised people don't get this, to the authorities it''s related to his index offence, you know, like letting a paedophile organise a sponsored walk for save the children! When Dan is finally released from prison this stunt will come back to bite him on the backside. They are going to nail his ass to the wall.

mmm

re: Just to say

18.04.2010 17:52

(Just for reference: we say "arse" this side of the Atlantic, not "ass". Well done for getting paedophile/pedophile correct though)

It's nothing like letting a paedophile organise a save the children event. Your logic is totally round the twist. You "failed Logic 101" as I believe you say in your country. A slightly better analogy would be a paedophile organising an abuse the children event. But in Dan's case it's an animal protector organising an event to raise money for animal protection. The big difference of course is that Sea Shepherd are a legal organisation that are actually about enforcing international law and saving abused animals, whereas paedophiles are about breaking the law and abusing children.

And I fail to see how this will affect him when he gets out of prison.

Fuck me, the quality of trolls on Indymedia are going downhill.

anon

Logic or how the system works?

19.04.2010 09:39

"(Just for reference: we say "arse" this side of the Atlantic, not "ass". Well done for getting paedophile/pedophile correct though)

It's nothing like letting a paedophile organise a save the children event. Your logic is totally round the twist. You "failed Logic 101" as I believe you say in your country. A slightly better analogy would be a paedophile organising an abuse the children event. But in Dan's case it's an animal protector organising an event to raise money for animal protection. The big difference of course is that Sea Shepherd are a legal organisation that are actually about enforcing international law and saving abused animals, whereas paedophiles are about breaking the law and abusing children.

And I fail to see how this will affect him when he gets out of prison.

Fuck me, the quality of trolls on Indymedia are going downhill. "

My logic is around the twist? You assume I'm from across the pond because I used the word ass? Well you are wrong.

You don't seem to understand the very basics of how the whole system works. Dan's index offence was animal rights related "campaigning" and any connection to animal rights campaigning while in the grip of the system will be stamped out.

Dan will have to spend some time on licence and before he is released he will have to sign his licence and agree to abide by the conditions that will be set for his continued supervision while serving the rest of his sentence in the community. His level of supervision will also be affected by how he responds to his rehabilitation while in prison. I hope this is starting to sink in by now. Attempting to raise money for a militant animal rights organisation, legal or no, will be seen as a massive step back in this process.

Maybe you should crawl back under your bridge?

mmm

lets get this straight

20.04.2010 07:37

Sea Shepherd is not an animal rights group or animal welfare campaign or whatever.
It is an offical charity and they are a Conservation Group supported by the Austrialian Government and it's PM. Sea Shepered do not break the law, they just try to inforce the law by stopping illegal killing of whales. Even by boarding the ships and even throwing things at the ship and ramming, it is not breaking the law. They get away with it because it's the whale killers who are breaking the law and in this instance sea shepherd are allowed to do the actions they do to stop the illegal killing.
Sea Shepherd even say they are not Animal Rights and the founder of sea shepherd is not really into Animal Rights, its a well known fact.
So for dan to be punished for this is very wrong.
Maybe he was punished though because maybe you are not allowed to raise money for charity at all in prison unless its an offical prison charity even?
I don't know. Maybe someone who has been to prison can clear this up?

Intelligence

Really?

22.04.2010 15:49

"Sea Shepherd is not an animal rights group or animal welfare campaign or whatever.
It is an offical charity and they are a Conservation Group supported by the Austrialian Government and it's PM. Sea Shepered do not break the law, they just try to inforce the law by stopping illegal killing of whales. Even by boarding the ships and even throwing things at the ship and ramming, it is not breaking the law. They get away with it because it's the whale killers who are breaking the law and in this instance sea shepherd are allowed to do the actions they do to stop the illegal killing.
Sea Shepherd even say they are not Animal Rights and the founder of sea shepherd is not really into Animal Rights, its a well known fact."

Well known fact? The fact is that Sea shepherd society have links to animals rights and people heavily connected to animal rights. Jerry Vlasak and Joan Court is a prime example. The fact they attend ARC meetings and go to the animal rights gathering to discuss tactics would suggest an interest in animal rights.
Are you aware of all the arrests over the years? Did you know about the arrest warrant out for Watson for sinking a ship with limpet mines? He was lucky it ran out. Not to mention the latest arrest for piracy!

"So for dan to be punished for this is very wrong.
Maybe he was punished though because maybe you are not allowed to raise money for charity at all in prison unless its an offical prison charity even?
I don't know. Maybe someone who has been to prison can clear this up?"

You don't have to have spent time in prison to know that prisoners are allowed to raise money for charity.

mmm

Possible room for challenge

18.05.2010 18:13

So if troll is telling the truth then there is a general rule that political prisoners aren't allowed to be involved in political activity because it is deemed related to their offence? "Rehabilitation" is taken to amount to giving up / temporarily withdrawing from one's political beliefs? So even completely legal political activities are banned? And this is across the board for political prisoners - of whom there must now be dozens if not hundreds of one sort or another (counting the Gaza protesters, bogus 'terror' arrests and the various animal rights cases). Does this also mean political prisoners aren't allowed to receive political publications slanted towards their own views? Would things like being a vegan, studying animal-related courses, or working on the prison farm also be counted as recidivism?

It wouldn't surprise me if this is true, but wonder if it is a new thing - it's not something I've heard about before, so I strongly suspect it is rule-bending by these particular screws, maybe trying to set a precedent. We're definitely getting into "would never get past the European Court of Human Rights" territory here, and worth looking into legal challenges - there will be some criterion as to what grounds screws are allowed to violate rights under. The index offence in this case would not be 'SHAC campaigning' but 'conspiracy to blackmail' (or whatever the official charge was), hence activities would presumably have to be related to blackmail to count as related to the index offence. Prisoners have a lot of reason to want to keep their heads down but it's important that these things get challenged before they harden as practices - this sounds to me like a step towards introducing the American 'security threat group' system where entire swathes of political prisoners are banned from all kinds of political contact and kept on lockdown (which is clearly about making repression as harsh as possible).

screw screwfuckers

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