UK Policing Newswire Archive
Merseyside Police violently attack peaceful anti cuts protesters 18.01.12
19-01-2012 00:33
Pinheirinho Occupation, Sao Paulo resisting eviction now
17-01-2012 14:43
G20 protester's statement to the court
14-01-2012 15:48
37 anti-Guantanamo activists arrested outside White House
13-01-2012 12:22
Jock Palfreeman Solidarity Demo in London
13-01-2012 00:29
Jock Palfreeman Solidarity Demo. Thursday 15th March 2012. 11am – 2pm. London.William Singletary, 65, Courageous Witness of Mumia's Innocence
12-01-2012 21:28
Huntsman Arrested for Racially Abusing Hunt Saboteur
09-01-2012 20:22
Hunt Saboteurs Association Press Release January 7th 2012Eviction - Press Release: 9/1/12 from Occupy Lancaster!
09-01-2012 19:21
There are over 1 million empty properties in the UK, 350,000 of these have been vacant for over a year. Money is being spent on keeping these places empty with no benefit to communities and with negative devaluation of properties in the surrounding area. Criminalising squatting in the middle of a housing crisis, as the Con-Dem government plan to do, is only going to make matters worse.Police Harass Occupy Liverpool at Legal Squat
09-01-2012 14:34
URGENT CALL OUT FOR HELP! POLICE HAVE SURROUNDED THE NEW LOCATION! THE NEW LOCATION IS THE OLD CHURCH IN PRESTON STREET (OFF DALE STREET BY MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS LIVERPOO[L] CITY CENTRE). WE URGENTLY NEED AS MANY PEOPLE TO GET DOWN THERE ASAP! PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN
- Occupy Liverpool
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyLiverpool/posts/249099251830522
Police raid on Occupy Lancaster
09-01-2012 00:29
1,000 police officers and Police Support Officers have criminal records
08-01-2012 21:09
Freedom of Information requests have revealed that there are over 1,000 or more police officers and PCSOs who have a criminal record serving in Britain's police forces. Some forces did not respond so the number may be even higher.Obviously, not all police officers are bad but it has also been revealed that over the last 12 months 130 Metropolitan officers were allowed to resign rather than face disciplinary hearings, thus saving the police from potentially embarrassing revelations regarding corrupt officers. The excuse for this lack of accountability in some cases was the high cost involved in investigating the corruption or breaches of discipline.
No Justice for Kingsnorth Fitwatchers
07-01-2012 18:59
Fitwatch regularly get asked what happened to the cops who assaulted members of the group during Kingsnorth climate camp. The case received a large amount of publicity when it was front page of the Guardian in June 2009, and many thousands of people viewed the footage of officers using excessive force against three fitwatchers who were trying to identify officers who weren’t displaying their numbers.
However, until recently, there hasn’t been much to report. The IPCC and West Yorkshire Police (WYP) waddled their way through their initial investigation and subsequent appeals, and despite overwhelming evidence, found most of the behaviour and arrests acceptable behaviour aside from a couple of minor caveats such as the cops not identifying themselves being “regrettable” rather than intentional. PC Fisher, the cop who made headline news through using a stranglehold and excessively pressure pointing one Fitwatcher, was the only officer who complaints were upheld against. However, even the findings against him exonerate him of deliberately intending harm or injury through his use of force.
How Police branded @OccupyLSX and @UKuncut as “Terrorists”
07-01-2012 18:07
Young disabled Pakistani man tasered & assaulted by police on New Year's Eve
06-01-2012 12:50
Avoiding automated facial recognition / computer surveillance
05-01-2012 16:18
There is an interesting article here about how to avoid facial recognition from CCTV cameras, etc.Wukan Peasant Victory Sets Stage For Chinese Turmoil
04-01-2012 17:23
"Consultation on police powers to promote and maintain public order"
29-12-2011 19:14
A Home Office consultation on police powers in public order situations was launched in October. It closes on 13th January 2012.Brixton prison new year solidarity demo!
23-12-2011 13:19
Full article | 1 addition | 1 comment
More cops not charged for blatant criminality
23-12-2011 11:16
Two cops have been sacked for beating up 3 people after a car chase. Despite an investigation concluding that they physically assaulted the 3 people they found in the car (the driver got out in time), the CPS decided that no charges should be brought against the officers.Full statement from women suing police
22-12-2011 14:55
A copy of the statement without the Guardian edit:
EIGHT WOMEN DECEIVED INTO LONG TERM INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS WITH FIVE SEPARATE UNDERCOVER OFFICERS COMMENCE UNPRECEDENTED CLAIM AGAINST POLICE
Birnberg Peirce and partners have commenced legal action against the Metropolitan Police on behalf of eight women who were deceived into having long term intimate relationships with undercover police officers. The five undercover officers* were all engaged in infiltrating environmental and social justice campaign groups between the mid 1980’s and 2010 and had relationships with the women lasting from 7 months and the longest spanning 9 years.
The women assert that the actions of the undercover officers breached their rights as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 3 (no one shall be subject to inhumane and degrading treatment) and Article 8 (respect for private and family life, including the right to form relationships without unjustified interference by the state), The women are also bringing claims for deceit, assault, misfeasance in public office and negligence, and seek to highlight and prevent the continuation of psychological, emotional and sexual abuse of campaigners and others by undercover police officers.
After deceiving at least one woman into having a relationship with him, one of the officers, Bob Lambert, went on to supervise other undercover officers who had long term intimate relationships with campaigners. This, and the extended period in which these relationships were undertaken confirms that recently exposed police spies were not 'rogue officers', but were in fact part of an unacceptable pattern of engaging in long term intimate relationships (including embedding themselves in extended families) as part of the infiltration of environmental and other activist groups, which seems to have been condoned at high levels.
Through their collective experiences the women have identified a pattern that covers more than two decades of police operations and is therefore indicative of systemic abuse of female political activists involved in a range of different groups. Officers are given extensive training in how to spin tales, groom, deceive and embed themselves deeply in protest movements. After the women formed loving relationships with these men, they disappeared when their posting ended, leaving the women to cope with the trauma of not knowing whether or not the person they were in love with would return, not knowing if they should be worried or angry and trying to discover what was real and what was not. In one case where the officer re-appeared, his training enabled him to create a new deceit and further abuse the woman who had been left in a state of shock and trauma. She extricated herself with the help of Women's Aid and left for Refuge with her children. The responsibility for the lasting damage this caused goes right back to the undercover operation by the Metropolitan police and the training they gave him in the art of duplicity
The subsequent discovery that the men they had loved were in fact undercover police officers spying on them and others they knew was a horrifying experience, leaving the women with both a sense of violation and difficulties in trusting others and their own judgement. Discovering that the fundamentals of the relationship were lies has left them trying to comprehend how someone they shared dreams with, knew so intimately and trusted so deeply had never actually existed
This abuse has had a severe and lasting emotional impact on those affected.
Quote:
“We believe our case highlights institutionalised sexism within the police. It is incredible that if the police want to search someone’s house they are required to get the permission of a judge, yet if they want to send in an agent who may live and sleep with activists in their homes, this can happen without any apparent oversight!”
”We are bringing this case because we want to see an end to the sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners and others by undercover police officers. It is unacceptable that state agents can cultivate intimate and long lasting relationships with political activists in order to gain so called intelligence on those political movements.”
So far twelve inquiries have been set up in relation to undercover officers, however none of them are focussed on the human rights abuses perpetrated by the unit, none is independent and none of them are open and transparent.
* The five undercover officers are Mark Kennedy, Jim Boyling, Bob Lambert and two others who have not yet been exposed, known when undercover as John Barker and Mark Cassidy.