Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Stop persecuting us, protesters tell police

Portsmouth Man | 25.01.2008 11:32 | SOCPA | Animal Liberation | Repression | World

ANIMAL rights protesters arrested last week have today criticised police for detaining them, claiming they have done nothing wrong. The pair were arrested in Alver Road, Gosport, on Friday for the second time in nine months, but told The News they have never acted illegally... The arrests were part of Operation Achilles, a major police operation across the south targeting suspected animal rights extremists.

Tom Harris and Nicci Tapping
Tom Harris and Nicci Tapping


Sorry for the copying and pasting, although I think this was quite a fair article so thought I'd put it up on IMC.

Front page of:  http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/gosport


ANIMAL rights protesters arrested last week have today criticised police for detaining them, claiming they have done nothing wrong.
The pair were arrested in Alver Road, Gosport, on Friday for the second time in nine months, but told The News they have never acted illegally.

Police knocked down the front door of Tom Harris, 24, and Nicci Tapping, 26, on Friday morning and about a dozen officers raided the house.

The pair were handcuffed and arrested on suspicion of blackmail, interfering with businesses and criminal damage.

The arrests were part of Operation Achilles, a major police operation across the south targeting suspected animal rights extremists.

Mr Harris said: 'We arrange all our protests with the police and make sure we get permission for street collections.

'Everything is legally water-tight. It's all above board, we haven't done anything wrong.

'The police kept asking us if we attended protests and carried out leaftleting.

'What they were asking us about was all legal, they didn't ask us about anything criminal.

'We are trying to do the right thing and we are trying to do it the right way and they should be trying to help us do that, not trying to stop us exercising our democratic rights.'

The pair are full-time volunteers for the Southern Animal Rights Coalition – a group set up to campaign against animal abuse across the southern region.

They were arrested at 9am on Friday morning as part of Operation Achilles and on Sunday were bailed until March, pending further questioning.

As part of the same operation a woman aged 50 was arrested in Thorncroft Road, Littlehampton. She was also bailed.

The arrests follow the biggest ever police swoop on animal rights protesters in May last year, in which the pair were also arrested.

When previously released on bail Miss Tapping told The News that she had never carried out any unlawful activity.

'I was scared – I haven't done anything wrong,' she said.

The police refused to reveal details of the of the case, but spokeswoman Lucy Dibden said: 'The arrests were made legally and in proportion in relation to the evidence we have in Operation Achilles.

'We do uphold the right to lawful protest.

'It would be inappropriate to comment any further, because they are on bail.'


24 January 2008 9:18 AM

Portsmouth Man

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. SARC — Help them out!
  2. same old shit — My Arse
  3. Shame on the police — Richard

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech