Peace Campaigners Take Police to High Court
http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2410978
By Tom Kelly, PA News
The High Court was hearing claims today that police breached human rights laws by barring protesters from an anti-war demonstration.
Peace campaigners brought the judicial review over allegations that officers refused to allow around 120 people to attend a vigil at RAF Fairford last March.
The Gloucestershire base was used by American B-52 bombers during the Iraq war, and became a focus for peace demonstrations.
The protesters claim three coaches were stopped and searched six miles from the base and escorted back to London over several hours without toilet or meal breaks.
They want the High Court to declare the operation by Gloucestershire police unlawful on the grounds that was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Jenny Jones, London’s Green deputy mayor, attended a vigil outside the court before the hearing.
She said: “To join a peaceful demonstration is accepted as a basic right in this country.”
http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2410978 By Tom Kelly, PA News
The High Court was hearing claims today that police breached human rights laws by barring protesters from an anti-war demonstration.
Peace campaigners brought the judicial review over allegations that officers refused to allow around 120 people to attend a vigil at RAF Fairford last March.
The Gloucestershire base was used by American B-52 bombers during the Iraq war, and became a focus for peace demonstrations.
The protesters claim three coaches were stopped and searched six miles from the base and escorted back to London over several hours without toilet or meal breaks.
They want the High Court to declare the operation by Gloucestershire police unlawful on the grounds that was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Jenny Jones, London’s Green deputy mayor, attended a vigil outside the court before the hearing.
She said: “To join a peaceful demonstration is accepted as a basic right in this country.”
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enfieldindependent
15.01.2004 12:30
By Kate Southern
PEACE campaigners who were stopped from attending an anti-war demonstration by police took their case to the High Court yesterday claiming a breach of human rights.
Up to 150 passengers, including many from Haringey, were travelling on three coaches to attend a mass protest outside a United States airbase in Fairford, Gloucestershire, three days after war was declared on Iraq.
But they were stopped by police six miles from their destination, stripped of protest equipment and their coach was escorted back to London on the motorway.
The protestors claim the police refused to allow the coach to stop for a comfort break and one woman said she was forced to urinate in a sandwich box in front of police with video cameras.
Meanwhile, other passengers dialled 999 to report being kidnapped.
Up to 60 passengers, who have formed the Fairford Coach Action Group, were expected to be at the High Court for the two-day hearing.
Passenger Jane Laporte, of Tottenham, said: "It is vitally important that people can protest freely, especially about a war which we believe was pursued without legal or moral justification."
The protest outside RAF Fairford was organised by the Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors (GWI) and attracted more than 3,000 protesters.
The base was used by American B-52 planes to bomb Baghdad.
10:29am today
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more reports
16.01.2004 11:27
By Jan Colley, PA News
The police were guilty of an “abuse of power” in barring three coachloads of protesters from a demonstration against the war on Iraq, the High Court heard today.
Counsel for about 60 of the 120 passengers who were prevented from attending the vigil at RAF Fairford in March said that the action taken by Gloucestershire Police was unlawful.
Michael Fordham said: “We submit both by reference to well established common law and also by reference to human rights law, as it now is in domestic law from October 2000, that that police action was an abuse of power.
“We submit that the the police stepped well outside the legal parameters on their powers and that the action taken was unjustified.”
He told Lord Justice May and Mr Justice Harrison, sitting in London, that the three coaches from London were intercepted in a lay-by in Lechlade at 12.50pm, searched and items were seized.
At 2.15pm, the decision was taken to return the coaches to London non-stop under police escort because of the view taken about preventing violence by hard-core demonstrators.
Mr Fordham said that both the action of turning away and of forcible return were unlawful.
“This was a case of a preventative restraint, not because of anything that had happened but because of something that was said to be anticipated.”
He said that he did not accept that there would have been a breach of the peace on arrival at Fairford.
Nor did he accept that there were no steps which the police could have taken to consider the different passengers and to seek to differentiate between them.
He said that the operation at Fairford, which was used by American B-52 bombers, was the largest and most complex police operation ever undertaken by Gloucestershire Police.
“The day was very important to them and very important to those who wished to go to Fairford to exercise their rights of assembly and expression.”
The protesters were utterly opposed to the US-led military assault on Iraq and wished to exercise their deeply-held beliefs through peaceful protest.
Mr Fordham said that the police regarded their operation as a great success in achieving their strategic objectives of preventing violence and facilitating peaceful protest.
Gloucestershire Police, which are contesting the judicial review proceedings, argue that their officers were not only entitled to take the action they did – they were obliged to.
The case is expected to go into tomorrow with no immediate decision.
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Iraq protesters sue police
Jamie Wilson
Friday January 16, 2004
The Guardian
Anti-war protesters yesterday launched a high court action against Gloucestershire police, claiming that its officers breached human rights law by barring them from a demonstration at RAF Fairford.
Lawyers for 60 of the 120 passengers on three coaches who were intercepted on their way to the protest at the US airbase against the war on Iraq accused the police of being guilty of an abuse of power and unlawful action.
The case is being brought in the name of one protester, Jane Laporte, who boarded one of the coaches outside Euston station in London for the journey to Fairford in Gloucestershire on Saturday March 22 last year.
They were stopped and searched in the village of Lechlade, about 10 miles from the airbase. The police claimed they believed that members of a hardcore direct action group known as the Wombles were on board.
Chief Supt Kevin Lambert of Gloucestershire police decided that the passengers intended to cause a breach of the peace and that the coaches should be returned to London non-stop under a police escort. The vehicles were forced back on to the motorway, where they were surrounded by police vans and motorcycle outriders on the way back to London.
Michael Fordham, for the protesters, said the police action was a case of a preventative restraint, not because of anything that had happened, but because of something that was said to be anticipated.
"We submit, both by reference to well-established common law and also by reference to human rights law as it now is in domestic law from October 2000, that that police action was an abuse of power," he told the court.
Mr Fordham said that there was no evidential basis for concluding that the passengers as a whole were Wombles, and articles seized from the coaches did not justify the police assumption of a collective intent to breach the peace.
He said that what was absent throughout was any attempt by the police to investigate the identity of the coach passengers before concluding that they were violent "ringleaders" of the Wombles.
He asked the court to grant a declaration that the action of Gloucestershire police was unlawful. He also said that there was no reason why it should not also assess a damages claim on Ms Laporte's behalf, which he put at £2,500.
The Gloucestershire force, which is contesting the judicial review proceedings, argues that its officers were not only entitled to take the action they did, but were obliged to.
The police case is that the items seized from the coaches, included body armour, masks, spray paint, two pairs of scissors, a smoke bomb and five shields, justify its actions.
In papers before the court, the police counsel, Simon Freeland QC, said the coach passengers were "evidently remarkably well-armed" for a group of peace activists.
He said any damages award should be no more than £500.
The case continues today.
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Anti-war group accuses police of abuse of power
The Telegraph
News in brief
16/01/2004
Gloucestershire police were accused in the High Court yesterday of an "abuse of power" by 60 anti-war protesters.
They were among a group of around 150 who travelled in three coaches towards the US air base at RAF Fairford last March after B52 bombers from the base began operational flights to Iraq.
The coaches were stopped three miles from the base and escorted back to London. Passengers were not allowed off at service stations to use the lavatories. Their counsel, Michael Fordham, said the police had acted unlawfully.
But police said they were acting on intelligence that the group were the "Wombles", hard-core protesters determined to enter the base.
Items seized included body armour, masks, spray paint, two pairs of scissors, a smoke bomb and five shields. Simon Freeland, QC, for the police, said the passengers were "evidently remarkably well-armed" for peace activists. The case continues.
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two pairs of scissors!!
16.01.2004 13:35
Body armour, well some foam right. Masks? well a few peoples variously coloured scarves and packs of white paper dust masks that were with the white paper suits, which the GWI group who called many of the protests at fairford had encouraged everyone to bring - and indeed many who attended the actual protest did.
madness!
what?