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 MASSIVE AWARD TO ANTI-MONARCHY PROTESTERS |
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12 Feb 2004 |
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MASSIVE AWARD TO ANTI-MONARCHY PROTESTERS FOLLOWING JUBILEE DAY 2002 ARRESTS MET APOLOGISE, ADMIT LIABILITY FOR FALSE IMPRISONMENT AND BREACH OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND AGREE TO PAY DAMAGES
23 anti-Monarchists are today jubilant following an award by the Metropolitan Police of £80,500 following their unlawful arrests in a public house and on the street on Jubilee Day, (4th June) 2002.
The police have apologised in a letter to each of those arrested, accepted liability for false imprisonment, and breaches of their human rights in particular their rights to liberty, privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of association. The police have awarded them £80,500 following a collective action undertaken by the group.
The circumstances of the arrests were bizarre, verging at times on the farcical:
1. Some members of the group had earlier in the day attended a public demonstration against the monarchy at Tower Hill. A large joint police operation between the Met and City of London Police had confined the protest to a small area near Tower Hill tube station. As the protest ended the demonstrators dispersed, and some event goers walked to the nearby Goodman’s Field pub in Aldgate. They were followed by a group of around 50 police officers who waited outside and, following a briefing entered the pub encircling the group, by now seated and enjoying a bank holiday lunchtime drink.
2. Other customers looked on horrified as the police cautioned, filmed and led the revellers out one by one, making them stand in line on the pavement, under the auspices of “preventing a breach of the peace”. Others were arrested in order to “prevent a breach of the peace” on the street having previously been cordoned there by the police.
3. The nature of the arrests was farcical. Officers asked each person in turn their intentions. All 23 were summarily arrested regardless of their answers. An officer recorded in notes taken later how an arrestee stated categorically that he had no intention of breaching the peace. He notes his reply to the man, which was repeated parrot-fashion to each and every arrestee: “I believe you are here [in the pub] to cause a breach of the peace therefore I am arresting you to prevent a breach of the peace”. It later transpired from recovered police notebooks, that at a briefing prior to entering the pub, although officers were told to ask the revellers questions they were also told to disregard the answers!
4. Events turned comical as a Routemaster Bus was commandeered and the arrestees, some of whom had been handcuffed, ushered onto the bus and driven at speed to several police stations around London!
5. No charges were ever brought against those arrested and the individuals were released several hours later as jubilee celebrations were drawing to a close.
Trevor Bark, spokesperson for the group commented: “This award, apology and acceptance of liability demonstrate that the police now accept no offences were committed, nor were likely to be. We remain convinced that these tactics were employed, planned and coordinated in advance and at a very senior level, in order to remove any dissent against the monarchy or the jubilee day celebrations themselves.”
“We’d like to offer the Met the chance to come clean and publicly state which senior officers ordered these arrests and why.” he added.
The group’s lawyer Mark Scott of Bhatt Murphy solicitors said: “the police on 4 June 2002 acted entirely unlawfully and used their powers to arrest in order to target demonstrators and seek to suppress and restrain lawful protest, assembly and freedom of speech.”
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