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Solidarity with John Bowden in Liverpool

No CONcensus | 19.10.2012 20:27 | 2011 Census Resistance | Repression | World

We were back at Liverpool Magistrates' Court today in solidarity with Census refuser Andy Manifold (report to follow). As it was also International Day of Solidarity with John Bowden and we were going to be standing outside the court for quite a while, a placard for John seemed appropriate.



The placard was on display throughout our vigil and we spoke to a good few people about his case.

More info about John Bowden here:  https://indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/10/501442.html

The G4S goons who've been put in charge of court security in Liverpool were intent on starting a confrontation with us as a pretext for not allowing us to go into the court to support Andy later on. This guy told them in no uncertain terms to leave us alone, after which we got talking about John Bowden.

Solidarity with John Bowden from all of us!

No CONcensus
- e-mail: noconcensus _at_ yahoo.co.uk

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Thanks for that

19.10.2012 20:41

Great news, will let John know.

Leeds ABC member

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One twat with a can of lager

19.10.2012 21:36

..... is "international solidarity" now is it? Jeezus the ABC are delusional

DEF

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British Justice?

20.10.2012 00:50

You want British Justice? You have it already.
Its called locking up murders who dismember their victims whilst they are still alive.
Its called keeping them locked up because they are obviously dangerous to the public.
Its called not listening to what the killer wants, but rather listening to what the public want.

Not sure what drinking lager has got to do with protesting outside a court, but nevermind

Electric carving knife

Two sides to every story.

20.10.2012 08:03



A SADISTIC killer who cut up a man with a saw while he was alive is on the run after being allowed to go shopping.

John "Ginger" Bowden, 51, was allowed the trip as part of his training for freedom - despite showing traces of cocaine in a prison drugs test.

And the decision by the killer - who was given a life sentence in 1982 - to go on the run has puzzled prison insiders, as he was due to go before a parole hearing which could have won him freedom in just a few days.

Ian McGregor, governor of Noranside Prison, near Brechin, Angus, is understood to have allowed the shopping trip as the drugs test was not totally conclusive.

A prison source said: "Bowden had asked for a second test. Even if that proved positive it wouldn't necessarily have affected his parole hearing, but absconding will. "

Bowden's suitability for parole was reviewed a year ago because of his contact with the group Anarchist Black Cross - who campaign for the abolition of the prison system.

Bowden, who has written for the group's website, blames the brutalising effect of the penal system for the "senseless" murder of park-keeper Donald Ryan, 49.

Mr Ryan was lured to a flat in London by Bowden and two other men and knocked unconscious. He was put in a bath and dismembered with a saw and a machete while alive.

Bowden spent 18 months on the run after escaping while on compassionate home leave in 1992.

But he was sent back to jail after being caught for dole fraud and identified by his fingerprints as a prisoner on the run.

He went on to marry secretary Alice Still, then 42, who he met during his escape.

But the prison source said they had separated some time ago.

Bowden was moved to open prison conditions last year and has been on regular home leaves.


 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/saw-killer-john-bowden-goes-977550


You will be campaining for sex offenders next!

HMP

Fuck off and die screw

20.10.2012 08:50

You verminous scum lied to the gutter press, and now you quote your lies as truth?! John Bowden is worth more than the lot of you.

Anarchist

Really?

20.10.2012 09:08

"You verminous scum lied to the gutter press, and now you quote your lies as truth?! John Bowden is worth more than the lot of you."

Tell that to his victim who he robbed and murdered.

"A killer who went on the run after being let out of jail to go shopping has been given a six-month sentence.

John Bowden, 51, had been serving life for using a machete, electric carving knife and saw to cut up a man in London while he was still alive in 1982.

He then decapitated his victim and kept his head in his fridge.

Bowden absconded from HMP Noranside in May and was caught almost a month later after a police stand-off at a farm in Clydebank.

He was found guilty of perverting the course of justice at Forfar Sheriff Court.

He had denied the charges, claiming his absence was one of necessity after a drugs test mix-up."

He was in open conditions ready for release, he fucked up by going on the run.


HMP

john bowden writes

20.10.2012 11:35

"In November of 1980 I was arrested along with two other men for the murder of a man who had been drinking in our company in a South London flat. It was a senseless, almost gratuitous killing, and reflected the extent of my brutalisation after years of brutalising treatment in state institutions. I was sentenced to life imprisonment with the judge’s recommendation that I serve no less than 25 years. Realistically, nobody expected me to ever emerge from jail, and I entered the prison system with absolutely nothing to lose or live for. Quite soon after my imprisonment however, I began to become politicized; to emerge from the hopelessness, violence, and rage that had characterised my life thus far. Ironically, prison provided me with the time and opportunity to read, study, and think; and recognise a common interest and humanity with my fellow captives. I’d always possessed a certain degree of class consciousness, always identified with and felt part of a poor underclass. I’d always felt an instinctive hatred of the rich and powerful, and believed in a vague concept of class struggle and revolution. In prison for life, I was now able to intellectually develop and grow, and in a strange sort of way, discover a freedom of heart and mind that I’d never before known. Within two years of my imprisonment for life I had metamorphosed into a committed revolutionary dedicated to fighting the prison system, making whatever contribution I was able to the wider struggle beyond prison."

John Bowden
Extract from "Tear Down The Walls"
 http://leedsabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Tear-Down-The-Walls-2010.pdf

jb

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!!

20.10.2012 12:24

"It was a senseless, almost gratuitous killing, and reflected the extent of my brutalisation after years of brutalising treatment in state institutions"


He needs locking up.

Anon

also this:

21.10.2012 07:49

Interview with John Bowden
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/05/369954.html

reposter

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The Undercover Black Cross

21.10.2012 11:45

"It was a senseless, almost gratuitous killing, and reflected the extent of my brutalisation after years of brutalising treatment in state institutions...."

Sounds like the actions of any cunt who doesn't want to take responsibility for their own actions - there's an existential aspect to Anarchism that the likes of ABC seem blithely unaware of, and the only thing that's unusual about John Bowden is that he's articulate enough to put the excuses a thousand low-life thugs and murderers will dribble out into reasonably well-articulated prose

"Quite soon after my imprisonment however, I began to become politicized; to emerge from the hopelessness, violence, and rage that had characterised my life thus far"

Sounds like any other cunt who got religion in prison, except in Bowden's case the religion happened to be Anarchism, and the ABC are so desperate to smear Anarchists as psychopaths, while the rest of us are concerned with politicians, multinationals and military conglomerates who kill millions.

Sailes

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Grow up you idiots

21.10.2012 11:54

If Bowden really cared about Anarchism, rather than just caring about himself, he'd do the radical movement a favour and give us all a very wide berth. Ditto if the ABC really cared about John Bowden, they'd leave him well alone, because (even assuming he is a reformed character) the last way to help any prisoner get parole is for his or her case to be adopted by a group who openly campaign for revolutionary violence and for the closure of ALL prisons.

In Spain in 1936 the Anarchists RAN the prison system in Madrid

The achilles-heel of Anarchism is its pathetically naive attitude to anti-social crime (blame all violence and cruelty on the system, abolish all institutions of social control, and then, fingers crossed, just hope for the best comrade, because no-one will kill or rape anyone in a perfect Anarchist society.... right?)

Try to drag your minds out of teenage counter-culture and GROW UP

Claire

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Moderators!

21.10.2012 11:55

"content that is reposted or text that was originally a comment posted as a report"

Claire

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Indymedia

21.10.2012 22:23

If you deliberately wanted to convince people that the anarchist scene is about as out-of-touch with the issues that affect ordinary people as it's humanly possible to get, championing a cause like John Bowden's would be a good way to do that



Keep on censoring the comments Ricky

Parcelforce

Sorry ABC

21.10.2012 22:35

I personally have never beaten an innocent person to death, so, sorry ABC, sorry to rain on your picnic, but no, unfortunately John Bowden is NOT worth more than the lot of me

Jessie

Me to

22.10.2012 14:42

I have spent most of my life as a child and teenager in care through the 70s early 80s. I have also served 3 prison sentences. I was punched around in care by the staff, I was also sexually abused in care. Well documented, people server time for it.

I have not gone onto murder and rob or blame my petty crime on my upbringing. Crime free for 30 years, never murderered.

No excuse.....

PowerToTheProple

Who gives a fuck what you lying cop and screw trolls think?

22.10.2012 18:11

Maybe you'd kill someone if you were drunk and some other drunk (who turned out to be a child abuser) pulled a knife on you? John Bowden killed someone 32 years ago, together with 2 other (older) men, who were released more than 20 years ago. It is explicitly clear from his prison reports that John Bowden is being held in prison today because of his politics, not because of what happened 32 years ago. Why don't the pair of you jump on a fucking hand-grenade or something?

Free John Bowden

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