SMASH EDO
17h June 2005
EMBARGO. For Immediate Release
CONTACT: Andrew Beckett 07875 708873
smashedopress@yahoo.co.uk
PEACE ACTIVIST REMANDED FOR BREACH OF ARMS DEALERS INJUNCTION
Today Brighton Magistrates remanded peace activist Paul Lesniowski for allegedly breaching the controversial injunction imposed by Brighton arms dealers EDO MBM. This-is the first-time that a political activist has been remanded under section 3 of the a-Protection from Harassment Act
Paul was arrested yesterday at 4:30pm,for filming the director of Guardian security (employed by EDO MBM) to enforce the injunction. The director, accompanied by his own cameraman had crossed the road confront protestors. Both men refused to identify themselves when asked
Despite the District Judge hearing that Paul was of good character with no previous convictions she decided to remand-him. A packed public gallery was visibly shocked by the decision. Sussex Police maintained a heavy presence in court throughout.
. He is not named on the injunction, and at the regular demonstration on Wednesday when he was arrested he was not even protesting, but acting as a legal observer in a marked yellow jacket.
Despite the District judge declaring that she did have jurisdiction to deal with the alleged breach, Paul asked for his case to be heard in the Crown Court before a jury.
Andrew Beckett, press spokesman for the campaign said “It is disgusting that a committed peace activist finds himself in prison for an alleged minor breach of this draconian injunction. Sussex Police have taken it upon themselves to enforce an exclusion zone by whatever means necessary”
Supporters will demonstrate outside Lewes prison today at 4:30pm
Paul is due to appear in court again on June 23rd.Paul is a 31 year old Brighton resident. He works as a translator for a major paper company.
Notes for Journalists
Brighton&Hove is a UN Peace Messenger City.
The Injunction referred to was served under the1997 Protection from Harassment Act (originally designed to protect people from stalkers) and is the first of its kind directed at activists outside of the animal rights movement. Crucially it is a civil injunction but carries criminal penalties. It affects anyone deemed to be a protestor
In the handful of prosecutions that have been made against animal rights activists under the same ‘stalker’ law legislation there have been no convictions and nobody has gone to prison.
Initially EDO/MBM requested a large “exclusion zone” comprising the whole of Home Farm Industrial Estate. They and Sussex police also wanted to limit demonstrations to two and a half hours, with less than ten people who had to be silent. Judge Gross refused to impose these conditions at the initial hearing.
In his summing up he said, “The right to freedom of expression is jealously guarded in English law” and consequently refused to impose the requested limits on size, timing or noise made at demonstrations.
EDO MBM Technologies Ltd are the sole UK subsidiary of huge U.S arms conglomerate EDO Corp, which was recently named No. 10 in the Forbes list of 100 fastest growing companies. They supply bomb release mechanisms to the US and UK armed forces amongst others. They supply crucial components for Raytheon’s Paveway IV guided bomb system widely used in the “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq. EDO also recently withdrew a threatened libel action against Indymedia over being named as “warmongers”.
Lawson-Cruttenden & Co, a solicitors firm working for EDO have been instrumental in developing the Protection of Harassment Act 1997 from a measure designed to safeguard individuals to a corporate charter to make inconvenient protest illegal. They have pioneered to use of injunctions to create large “exclusion zones”. They have secured numerous injunctions against anti-vivisection and anti-GM protestors.
Campaign against EDO MBM, People involved in the anti-EDO campaign include, but are not limited to: local residents, the Brighton Quakers, peace activists, anti-capitalists, Palestine Solidarity groups, human rights groups, trade unionists, academics and students.
The campaign started in August 2004 with a peace camp.
It’s avowed aim is to expose EDO MBM and their complicity in war crimes and to remove them from Brighton.
17h June 2005
EMBARGO. For Immediate Release
CONTACT: Andrew Beckett 07875 708873
smashedopress@yahoo.co.uk PEACE ACTIVIST REMANDED FOR BREACH OF ARMS DEALERS INJUNCTION
Today Brighton Magistrates remanded peace activist Paul Lesniowski for allegedly breaching the controversial injunction imposed by Brighton arms dealers EDO MBM. This-is the first-time that a political activist has been remanded under section 3 of the a-Protection from Harassment Act
Paul was arrested yesterday at 4:30pm,for filming the director of Guardian security (employed by EDO MBM) to enforce the injunction. The director, accompanied by his own cameraman had crossed the road confront protestors. Both men refused to identify themselves when asked
Despite the District Judge hearing that Paul was of good character with no previous convictions she decided to remand-him. A packed public gallery was visibly shocked by the decision. Sussex Police maintained a heavy presence in court throughout.
. He is not named on the injunction, and at the regular demonstration on Wednesday when he was arrested he was not even protesting, but acting as a legal observer in a marked yellow jacket.
Despite the District judge declaring that she did have jurisdiction to deal with the alleged breach, Paul asked for his case to be heard in the Crown Court before a jury.
Andrew Beckett, press spokesman for the campaign said “It is disgusting that a committed peace activist finds himself in prison for an alleged minor breach of this draconian injunction. Sussex Police have taken it upon themselves to enforce an exclusion zone by whatever means necessary”
Supporters will demonstrate outside Lewes prison today at 4:30pm
Paul is due to appear in court again on June 23rd.Paul is a 31 year old Brighton resident. He works as a translator for a major paper company.
Notes for Journalists
Brighton&Hove is a UN Peace Messenger City.
The Injunction referred to was served under the1997 Protection from Harassment Act (originally designed to protect people from stalkers) and is the first of its kind directed at activists outside of the animal rights movement. Crucially it is a civil injunction but carries criminal penalties. It affects anyone deemed to be a protestor
In the handful of prosecutions that have been made against animal rights activists under the same ‘stalker’ law legislation there have been no convictions and nobody has gone to prison.
Initially EDO/MBM requested a large “exclusion zone” comprising the whole of Home Farm Industrial Estate. They and Sussex police also wanted to limit demonstrations to two and a half hours, with less than ten people who had to be silent. Judge Gross refused to impose these conditions at the initial hearing.
In his summing up he said, “The right to freedom of expression is jealously guarded in English law” and consequently refused to impose the requested limits on size, timing or noise made at demonstrations.
EDO MBM Technologies Ltd are the sole UK subsidiary of huge U.S arms conglomerate EDO Corp, which was recently named No. 10 in the Forbes list of 100 fastest growing companies. They supply bomb release mechanisms to the US and UK armed forces amongst others. They supply crucial components for Raytheon’s Paveway IV guided bomb system widely used in the “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq. EDO also recently withdrew a threatened libel action against Indymedia over being named as “warmongers”.
Lawson-Cruttenden & Co, a solicitors firm working for EDO have been instrumental in developing the Protection of Harassment Act 1997 from a measure designed to safeguard individuals to a corporate charter to make inconvenient protest illegal. They have pioneered to use of injunctions to create large “exclusion zones”. They have secured numerous injunctions against anti-vivisection and anti-GM protestors.
Campaign against EDO MBM, People involved in the anti-EDO campaign include, but are not limited to: local residents, the Brighton Quakers, peace activists, anti-capitalists, Palestine Solidarity groups, human rights groups, trade unionists, academics and students.
The campaign started in August 2004 with a peace camp.
It’s avowed aim is to expose EDO MBM and their complicity in war crimes and to remove them from Brighton.
Comments
Hide the following 12 comments
more info on the interim injunction
16.06.2005 13:31
Harassment Act 1997 . This enables an individual to bring a civil
action in respect of an actual or anticipated course of conduct causing
harassment to another person.
EDO brought this interim injunction under Section 3 of the Act, because breach of an injunction passed under the Act is punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment. This makes it an "arrestable offence', which confers considerable powers of arrest and search on the police.
For more on "arrestable offences" see:
With most civil injunctions, it is the Claimant's job to enforce it. If
someone breaches the injunction, the Claimant has to go back to court to
apply for committal proceedings against the Defendant, in order to have the
Defendant punished for contempt. The Courts will only punish a Defendant for
contempt, however, if the breach is sufficiently clear and serious.
In the cases of harassment injunctions, the Claimant has the option of enforcing it
by contempt proceedings. But the police can also take action for breach.
This enables the police to threaten, bully and arrest protestors for the
most trivial of breaches, which would never ordinarily be punished for
contempt.
The police use the injunctions as a tool for arrest, search and general
harassment rather than for actual prosecution.
Since April 2003 there have been 19 Harrasment Act injunctions brought against animal rights protestors. Only a handful of prosecutions have been brought for breach of an injunction, and there has not been a single conviction, and until today nobody had ever been remanded.
beckett
address?
16.06.2005 13:32
concerned
Letters
16.06.2005 14:24
Until a prison number becomes known, send letters to
Paul Lesniowski
REMAND PRISONER
HMP Lewes
Brighton Road
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 1EA
Keep us updated please smashniks.
The guy whose picture Paul is said to have been taken has been serving the original injunctions - (of which most of the clauses were thrown out in the High Court hearing) on anybody attending the demos. He walks into the middle of the demonstration with someone else filming him, and has been known to run after demonstrators to try and serve them with the wrong forms. He has refused to identify himself, despite being asked frequently to do so - he is not one of the edo employees, and because of his behaviour and the fact that he walks into the middle of the demo - it is inevitable that he will end up on film.
It is inconceivable that this imprisonment was envisaged by Justice Gross when he handed down the interim order. It is vital that the legal team now presses for an urgent hearing of the full case in the High Court, in light of the way that the police have handled demos since the interim order was signed.
The behaviour of the police at the Big Demo on 31st May where 8 were arrested is a prime exampler of why demonstrators need cameras there - as there were violent and unwarranted arrests, which are now on film which will be used as a part of the protestors defence.
For as long as EDO MBM is in Brighton, there will be a sustained campaign against it.
EDO WILL GO!!!!
ftp
Demo at Lewes Prison on Friday
16.06.2005 17:42
There will be another noise demo outside the prison from 4 til 6 tomorrow (friday)
Please bring pots and pans so paul can hear us...
Defy the Injunction
Smashnik
prisoner number
16.06.2005 17:52
LH7394
smashprisons
prisoner number
16.06.2005 17:54
smashnik
Result
17.06.2005 10:54
What a result!!!!!!!!!!!
Very Glad Man
"Very Glad Man"
17.06.2005 12:17
If there are in your estimation 51 now, how many do you think there will be as the cops start jailing people for peaceful protest?
Judging be the policing levels at the last few demos, you and your fellow edo-mbm murder enablers are looking at hefty council tax increases.
A handful -> '51' -> hundreds ........
e-mail:
Do the maths
EDO Supplier
17.06.2005 15:05
Check out www.gouldalloys.co.uk and ask them nicely to refuse to deal with the warmongers.
Gould Alloys, Carrwood Industrial Park, Carrwood Road, Chesterfield,Derbyshire, S41 9QB Managing Director's phone 01246 263301or email
researcher
1 down 5 billion to go
17.06.2005 15:14
We are not going away. Us human beings will not be intimidated into letting you wreak your destruction. The only way you will get rid of protests outside your workplace is to CHANGE YOUR WORK.
What happens in that factory is disgusting. Decent people every where are standing up for their rights. The more you knock us down, the more we stand up.
If there's any justice you'll have huge bill for compensation on your doorstep son.
We will be there til EDO isn't!
in for the long haul
More Background
18.06.2005 10:07
On Wednesday a District Judge at Brighton Magistrates Court refused to grant Paul bail describing what he had done as in ‘flagrant disregard of the injunction’ and remanded him to Lewes prison until a pre-trial hearing.
Paul was acting as a legal observer on the day, wearing a marked bright yellow jacket, and used a video camera to witness the behaviour of two men, one with a video camera, who refused to identify themselves, whilst threatening another female protestor. One of these men then called Sussex Police and reported Paul for a breach of the injunction, which prohibits photography of ‘protected persons’ under the interim Injunction. It was only revealed in court the next day that this man was the director of Guardian Security Ltd, a sub contactor of EDO MBM (and therefore a protected person). He had refused repeatedly to identify himself on the day itself.
Paul was described in court as of ‘good character’ with no previous convictions and the Crown Prosecutor had not contested an application for bail, but the District judge decided to make an example of him and remanded him to Lewes Prison.
Interim civil injunctions brought under Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 against political protestors, have till now only been used against Animal Rights activists (and in one case against GM crop protestors) Out of 19 High Court civil injunction cases over the last three years, none have yet come to full trial, and despite a handful of arrests, no-one has ever been convicted or remanded for breach of the interim injunctions, that are usually imposed between the period of initial claim and full trial.
Paul is the first individual to be remanded for a breach of an interim injunction brought under this law against political activists in the UK.
The evidence used to bring interim injunctions of this kind has only been examined by High Court Judges on a prima facia level. The required standard of proof for an interim injunction to be granted is only that the case is ‘arguable’, but breaching it carries the full penalty of a permanent injunction (maximum 5 years imprisonment). The evidential burden of proof in civil courts is lower than in criminal proceedings and allows for hearsay, and in the EDO case has even included anonymous postings on open source websites, that could easily have been written by the employees of EDO MBM. Allegations of harassment are strenuously denied by all named defendants in the EDO injunction hearings. Paul is not even named on the injunction as a defendant and has not even been considered as part of any organised campaign against the company by those bringing the action.
The 1997 Act was intended to protect individuals and close knit family and social groups from harassment by ‘stalkers’, and since it has been established in court that corporations cannot be harassed, corporate law firms specialising in this field have found a way round the law by using Civil Procedure Rule 19.6 which grants a Representative Order to directors of companies on behalf of all their employees, subcontractors, and agents as a supposed ‘close knit group’.
No evidence has been shown in court that EDO MBM Director David Jones has been mandated by his employees to represent them. EDO MBM employees, as signatories of the Official Secrets Act, cannot even speak out to dispute his claim of representation without risking arrest and criminal prosecution.
Because of the seriousness of his alleged offence (breach of a High Court Injunction) and a possible maximum penalty of 5 years in prison, Paul’s case will be heard in Lewes Crown Court. A pre-trial hearing is set for 10am Wednesday June 22nd 2005. An alleged minor technical civil offence under this interim injunction (pointing a camera) has become a serious criminal matter for the Crown Court and is to be heard before a jury trial. Meanwhile the real criminals who aid and abet war crimes and mass murder go to work without fear of arrest for crimes they are clearly involved in.
We ask you to show support for Paul’s defence case, and speak out against the clear injustice of this interim injunction brought by an arms company against peaceful anti-war demonstrators.
Pauls imprisonment is a clear attempt to intimidate and suppress anti-war and anti-arms trade demonstrations in Brighton. The interim injunction was suggested to EDO by Sussex Police as a means to ending the protests, and protecting their budget, even though they have a legal responsibility to allow peaceful demonstrations to take place as a foundational freedom of democratic society.
Any discouragement of open political demonstrations by the state or any party is a serious contravention of both articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights to Freedom of Expression and Assembly. But since none of these political injunction cases have had their claims of harassment tested in full trial, they have been used by police as a means of intimidation, arrest and now imprisonment. EDO MBM have paid out tens of thousands of pounds to give the police the powers to bypass the normal process of law, to harass protestors, and now lock them up.
EDO MBM are ancillary offenders in war crimes. They clearly aid, abet and assist the illegal war of aggression by US/UK forces in Iraq, as well as supplying, the Israeli armed forces who commit crimes against humanity and genocide in the occupied Palestinian territories. These are arrestable offences in UK domestic law under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.
On Saturday June 11th 2005 over 100 individuals reported these crimes to Superintendant Kevin Moore at Brighton Police Station. He has so far refused to take action, and has told the Brighton Argus that he has dismissed the evidence. David Jones, Director Of EDO MBM and his employees remain at large. Paul remains in Lewes prison.
ab
Paul Released
20.06.2005 21:26
I am told he is well and in good health.
Pre-trial hearing now set for thurs 23 at brighton magistrates 1Oam not wednesday 22 in lewes as previously announced.
haha