MASSIVE DAMAGE AT BRIGHTON ARMS FACTORY.
Nine activists were arrested at a Brighton weapons factory in the early hours of January 17th
Nine activists were arrested at a Brighton weapons factory in the early hours of January 17th
According to one witness computers, filing cabinets as well as missiles were hurled out of top floor windows as a group of protesters broke in to the factory in the early hours staging a “citizen's decommissioning” of the EDO-MBM/ITT arms factory in direct response to the killings of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military.
The activists barricaded themselves into the factory on Home Farm Rd, Moulsecoombe. Eventually 30 police arrived and they were arrested.
Elijah Smith, one of the protesters that broke into the factory, said
“I'm looking at the world scene and I'm getting more and more horrified. I've been looking at the law and I don't feel I'm going to do anything illegal tonight, but I'm going to go into an arms factory and smash it up to the best of my ability so that it cannot actually work or produce munitions and these very dirty bombs that have been provided to the Israeli army so that they can kill children. The time for talking has gone too far. I'm not a writer, I'm just a person from the community and I'm deeply disgusted.”
There have been a total of 9 arrests.
Eight people have been charged with causing £250 000 of criminal damage and with burglary, one person has been released on police bail. Five people were bailed after a hearing at Brighton Magistrate's Court. Three were remanded to Lewes Prison. One person was granted bail after an appeal.
Two people remain on remand. Please send letters of support to:
Elijah Smith Prisoner no VP7551
Robert Alford VP7552
HMP Lewes
1 Brighton Road
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 1EA
A support campaign has been set up - see
http://www.decommisioners.wordpress.com and please sign our petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/edombm69/petition.html. As well as the campaign website www.smashedo.org.uk
“If you hear the sound of a child being brutalised in the house next door and you rush in to smash the door down and save the child, should you be charged with breaking and entering? Obviously not.” Eamonn McCann of the Raytheon 9.
The activists barricaded themselves into the factory on Home Farm Rd, Moulsecoombe. Eventually 30 police arrived and they were arrested.
Elijah Smith, one of the protesters that broke into the factory, said
“I'm looking at the world scene and I'm getting more and more horrified. I've been looking at the law and I don't feel I'm going to do anything illegal tonight, but I'm going to go into an arms factory and smash it up to the best of my ability so that it cannot actually work or produce munitions and these very dirty bombs that have been provided to the Israeli army so that they can kill children. The time for talking has gone too far. I'm not a writer, I'm just a person from the community and I'm deeply disgusted.”
There have been a total of 9 arrests.
Eight people have been charged with causing £250 000 of criminal damage and with burglary, one person has been released on police bail. Five people were bailed after a hearing at Brighton Magistrate's Court. Three were remanded to Lewes Prison. One person was granted bail after an appeal.
Two people remain on remand. Please send letters of support to:
Elijah Smith Prisoner no VP7551
Robert Alford VP7552
HMP Lewes
1 Brighton Road
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 1EA
A support campaign has been set up - see
http://www.decommisioners.wordpress.com and please sign our petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/edombm69/petition.html. As well as the campaign website www.smashedo.org.uk “If you hear the sound of a child being brutalised in the house next door and you rush in to smash the door down and save the child, should you be charged with breaking and entering? Obviously not.” Eamonn McCann of the Raytheon 9.
Comments
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20 questions! well nearly
02.02.2009 15:38
Daniel
Recommend name change from Daniel
02.02.2009 22:45
I have been preciously been posting here as Daniel, plus loads of easily related names. I perosnally have no objections to you posting under the same name here bceause I don't own it, but you should be aware I have have a lot of direct legal abuse from my posts, and posts that were under similar names and completely anonymous posts. I am not claiming the name 'Daniel' here, but I would recommend other people, inluding other innocent Daniels, avoid it for a while. There are cleverer pseudonyms just now.
'God has judged',
Daniel
A previous Daniel
halsburys laws of england
03.02.2009 15:11
The Criminal Damage Act 1971 provides specific excuses for what would otherwise be offences under the Act1. Thus, a defendant is excused if at the time of the alleged offence he believed2 that the person whom he believed3 to be entitled to consent to the destruction of or damage to the animal in question had so consented or would have so consented if he had known of it and its circumstances4; or if the defendant acted as he did in order to protect property belonging to himself or another or a right or interest, including sporting rights5, in it which he, or that other person, either possessed or he believed6 possessed, and at the time of the offence he also believed (1) that the property, right or interest was in immediate need of protection; and (2) that the means of protection adopted or proposed were or would be reasonable having regard to all the circumstances7.
1 See the Criminal Damage Act 1971 s 5. These excuses are in addition to any recognised defences: s 5(5). An honest, even if unreasonable, belief that the animal belonged to the defendant would be a good defence: see R v Smith [1974] QB 354, [1974] 1 All ER 632. Belief that the animal was wild and not reduced into possession (see para 711) would not be a good defence: Horton v Gwynne [1921] 2 KB 661, DC; Cotterill v Penn [1936] 1 KB 53, DC. If the act is done in self-defence the defendant is entitled to be acquitted: Hanway v Boultbee (1830) 4 C & P 350.
2 It is immaterial whether a belief is justified or not, provided that it is honestly held: Criminal Damage Act 1971 s 5(3).
3 See note 2.
4 Criminal Damage Act 1971 s 5(2)(a).
5 'Right or interest in property' includes any right or privilege in or over land, whether created by grant, licence or otherwise: Criminal Damage Act 1971 s 5(4). As to sporting rights generally see para 763 et seq.
6 See note 2.
7 Criminal Damage Act 1971 s 5(2)(b). The court must first decide what the defendant believed, then decide as a matter of law whether the defendant's actions on the facts believed by him could constitute protection of property: R v Hill, R v Hall (1989) 89 Cr App Rep 74, CA. The defence was held inapplicable in a case involving the destruction of traps set for badgers by officers of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, because the badgers could not be said to be property of the Department at the times when the traps were set: see Cresswell v DPP [2006] EWHC 3379 (Admin), sub nom Currie v DPP [2006] All ER (D) 429 (Nov).
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Date/Time Tuesday, February, 3, 2009, 15:07 GMT
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