Home | 14th July 1995 | Issue 31

Justice? Brighton's Campaign in Defiance of the Criminal Injustice Act

SchNEWS

MOTHER FUCKED!

HUGE POLICE OPERATION TO TRY TO STOP PARTY

Over the last few days, thousands of bleary-eyed party heads have been heading back to their homes from "the Mother," the huge free festival which, sort of, occurred over the weekend. It had been planned out over the last few months, with the locations kept secret until the last minute. Here at SchNEWS we have been trying to piece together exactly what happened but the various people who headed off to it with only vague directions and a few phone numbers.

Originally there were two sites for the party. One was at Smeathorpe in Devon, the other at Corby in Northants. But the police mounted a massive operation to put a stop to them. Surveillance of the organisers, phone tapping, road blocks and monitoring information on the Internet were all used to try to stop the parties. The police evicted party-goers from the main sites and chasing them around as they tried to set up elsewhere.

The Corby site was cracked on Thursday evening but by Friday morning the police turned up and gave everybody two hours to leave. Organisers tried to reason with the police to no avail with the result that the leaving time was shortened to three minutes (!) else vehicles would be impounded. Everyone moved off, arriving at a reservoir called Grafham Waters. The police, stretched by riots in nearby Luton, left owners Anglia Water to make a decision - and they were unable to get an injunction until wednesday. So from Saturday night onwards there was non-stop music with over a thousand people going for it "It was great," said one reveller. And was still going as we went to press.

A few hundred people also found their way from the Corby site to Sleaford in Lincolnshire on Friday night. Again, a sound system went up and a good time was had.

Meanwhile, similar mischief was going on in Smeathorpe in Devon. When the Cooltan bus arrived at about 9.30pm on Friday, they found the whole site blocked off. The police were threatening everybody with section 60 of the CJA. Convoys of party-goers ended up on various sites across the area, including biggies at Hinckley Point, (150 vehicles, 2 marquees), and Stead beach near a nuclear power station, (which isn't to be found on any OS maps). There were two systems at the beach and a hundred vehicles, but by Sunday there was not one single complaint - except for exasperated motorists who were pulled into lay-bys on suspicion of being ravers. "Police have no right to discriminate between people going on a camping holiday and ravers -yet this is what they were doing" said one driver.

COMEUPANCES

After the parties, Andy and Michelle from the Advance Party came back to their London home and found the police searching it, answering the phone and impersonating Andy "with a sore throat" to try and get information off the callers. Personal letters and flyers were removed and the pair of them were arrested along with their dog Bokkie. They are charged with 'conspiracy to cause public nuisance', a common law charge which can carry a maximum life sentence. "I feel very angry!" said Michelle. "It must have cost a fortune just to try and stop people dancing and having a good time". The members of Spiral Tribe were acquitted when charged with the same offence after Castlemorton in a case which cost £4M to bring to court.

Debbie Staunton from United Systems also has her house turned over and was taken in for questioning. Ten officers arrived from both the Metropolitan and Hampshire police forces arrived and kicked the door down on the Friday morning. She's been bound over to appear in Corby on Aug 7th despite not being charged. Well if that's not overdoing it..

At the Sleaford rave, the Blackmoon sound system was impounded and its three owners arrested and charged under section 63 of the CJA. One of the owners' house was turned over while he was away, and he was told that his system, worth £9000, may not be returned, even after the trial date.

DIY had their sound system confiscated at Smeathorpe in the early hours of Saturday morning. Police said they would impound the PA for a couple of days and that DIY could get it back. "The good news is that they pressed no charges and we got our PA back. The bad news is that the police are inventing their own rules," a DIY spokesman said.

In the end it didn't turn out to be the mega fettle that everybody hoped it would be. But it didn't stop people from having a good time and learning a few things while they were at it. Andy from Freedom Network said: "The feedback from the weekend was brilliant, it's got a lot of people who had lost interest in free festivals fired up again!" - So when's the next one kicking off then???

MINE-FIELD

"While Hestletine says there is no demand for coal the following week the application was granted for Selar. Meanwhile they closed the last deep cast mine in South Wales which has since re-opened as a workers coop and is turning over a healthy profit"

The tranquillity of the beautiful countryside at Neath Valley, nr Cwmgwrach, was shattered last Monday when work began, ripping up 880 acres of lush watermeadow, home of protected tare butterfly, ancient oak woodland and a designated SSSI. The entire landscape of the area is to be relocated 'chunk by chunk' to another site while a massive hole over 70m deep is torn into the landscape and mined for a minimum of 8 years. The local village will find itself completely surrounded by the open cast monster. The company responsible - Celtic Energy (British Coal without the workers) - stand to make a profit of around 45m while providing nothing for the local community except a handful of unskilled jobs and a ravaged, polluted landscape. This in an area torn apart by the government's devastation of the deep cast mining industry.

Opposition to the work has been fierce with a potent fusion of massive local support (veterans of the miner's strike) anti-road protesters from all over the country cooking up some Celtic Energy of their own. Despite police roadblocks, over 50 people fought to put a human barrier between the diggers and the watermeadows. Work was delayed for several hours with 19 people arrested - two for aggravated trespass under the Criminal Justice Act. The cash-strapped local police force once again find themselves acting as private security force to escort every work vehicle coming in and out of the site and using tactics one local said: "you'd never see on a rugby field!". On Tuesday their numbers had increased to nine police vanloads but they found that the pixies had been hard at work. A massive road-block, a slightly mashed-up bridge and a bender complete with section 6 sitting on what remained of the watermeadow. Four more people were arrested (and bailed off site) as the workers found an alternative route over an Oak tree and across a field they are contracted to protect. Later in the day, Keltic Energy found themselves at the receiving end when dozens of people invaded their offices and disrupted work. Slimy officials hid away until the occupiers had left then slid out to talk to the media about protesters being "outside the law". Tactics changed on Wednesday with several benders going up with section 6s while police ignored lawful eviction procedures and arrested 20 more people - charges not yet known. This beautiful area is disappearing now - help is needed to defend and expand the 17-acre squatted camp. Build yer own treehouse, swim in clear lakes and waterfalls while you still can. And don't forget the midgy cream! Cardiff EF! 01222 383 363

* VICTORY! The proposed super-quarry on the Scottish Isle of Harris has been put on hold after 80% of the islanders voiced their opposition to the scheme forcing the council to pull their support. It has been referred back to the Scottish Office. The tip of the mountain was given to visiting American Indian Shaman Stone Eagle in a ceremony last year for safekeeping ....

TRAVELLERS' ID TEST

Travellers on Cool Mountain, West Cork, Ireland, are the guinea pigs in a trial Identity Card scheme for benefit claimants. The travelling community, who have been on the mountain for 28 years, have been told that they could soon be used to collect their benefits from cash machines. The high cost hi-tech plastic card looks like a credit card with a hologram and magnetic strip. Magnetic strips can contain up to 32 kilobytes of information about you - that's about the length of this week's SchNEWS. Last month Michael Howard's plans for a national compulsory ID card for all sparked a civil rights furore. When the Australian government proposed a national Australia Card, 80% of the people had no problem with it. Within a year, however, when people realised what it was really going to be used for 90% voted against. The scheme was dropped.

* Mondex electronic cash cards - designed to replace paper money - began 12 month trial in Swindon last week.

An ID card campaign pack can be obtained by sending a £1 coin to: Campaigns office, Liberty, 21 Tabard St, London SE1 4LA

INSIDE SchNEWS

CHRIS COLE has been released after six months in Pentonville for breaking an injunction against British Aerospace.JIM CHAMBERS is still these, after 156 days, for alleged damage to a road construction site. Write to him at PV2504, HMP Pentonville, Caledonian Rd, London N7 8TT PHIL, awaiting sentence for anti-BNP march at Welling is at EJ3496, HB2, HMP Elmley, Kent ME12 4AY

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, on death row for 13 years, a former Blade Panther is charged (framed) for the murder of a policeman. HIS EXECUTION IS SET FOR 10pm THURSDAY AUGUST 17th 1995. Send letters of support to AM8335, SCI Green, 1040 E. Roy Furman-Hwy, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, PA 15370 USA British contact: 0181 519 9228.

SHOREHAM UPDATE

Last Monday police carried out dawn raids on the offices of Campaign Against Live Freight (CALF) and the homes of associates, carrying warrants for "drug distribution, fraud, assault and damage". Walls were drilled, floorboards ripped up, computers taken, address books and personal stuff - EVERYTHING TAKEN. The wife of a CALF associate was held and questioned all day at Worthing Police - she received no food until the last hour when she was given a sausage sandwich. Police claimed the raids were concerned with petrol bomb incidents in the Shoreham area. What petrel bombs? And how does that tally with the warrants issued? CALF will sue the police for exemplary damages and malicious seizure of goods. "It was a fishing expedition," said CALF member John White, "They did a blanket grab - even files on our Funday which was supposed to heal the wounds between police and residents after Shoreham."

EXETER TWIG-LOO

A huge communal 'Twig-loo' is the latest defence for tree sitters in the village in the sky in Fairmile, Exeter. A huge net inside a rigid frame with a bender on top is the latest development from the cargo-nets and tree-houses of Claremont Rd and Stanworth Valley.

The Quercus Tribe - named after the Latin for 'Oak' - are living in the trees on three sites to stop the construction of the A30 Euro-route between Honiton and Exeter. It is the first of four roads to be constructed under the DBFO system - dubbed Destroy, Burn, Fell, Obliterate. This means private contractors Design, Build, Finance and Operate the roads for up to 25 years. At the end of this period the government pays the contractors according to the volume of the traffic on the road, thereby creating an initiative to encourage traffic. The tribe are protecting a 400-yr-old oak tree, two copses containing indigenous species of trees, one of the largest badger setts in the country, and threatened wildlife including owls, buzzards, an endangered species of bat, deer, foxes and the great crested newt. Visit! Professional climbing tuition available. Bring skills, equipment, tools, music, imagination, crafts, mead, weed and cake! Tel: 0385 278 156/7. Note new address: PO Box 6, Ottery St Mary, Devon, EX11 1YL.

* Over 1,000 people have pledged to D-lock themselves to machinery when the Third Battle of Newbury commences. In his last act as Minister for Transport - architect of the Great Transport Debate (sic) - reversed a previous decision and OK'd the Newbury bypass. Work will start -and will be stopped - in December.

JULY 23rd STREET PARTY II - RAVE AGAINST THE MACHINE. Reclaim the streets giant street party @ 1pm Battlebridge Rd (behind Kings Cross Stn) 0171 254 2290

JULY 28th CRITICAL MASS All over the country Tel: RTS

JULY 31 - TWYFORD DOWN '50' IN COURT Demo @ Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand before the judge makes the final decision over DoT damages claim against 50 protesters. Road Alert! 01635 521 770

Party and Protest

13-16 JULY Phoenix Festival (0181) 9360940

14 JULY Larmer Tree Festival, Nr Salisbury, Wilt. Ring Justice? office.

*** Redcap Folk Festival (01947) 9804928

15 JULY National Rally against habitat destruction (0171) 490 1555

*** Free Bristol Community Festival, Aston Court Estate

16 JULY Tolpuddle Martyrs Rally: Dorset 01202 294333

*** Mass Vegetarian Rally Hyde Park, London 0181 681 8884

*** Redbridge Omen Fair, Melbourne Field, Valentine Park, Ilford 0181 554 2553

*** CND Anniversary of the first nuclear test. On 16 July 1945, at 1.29pm BST, the world's first atomic explosion, took place in America's New Mexico Desert. Time for a nuclear free world. Trafalgar Square, London, WC 1, 1 to 4 PM

*** Free Festival Andersen's Meadow, Norwich, 12-6pm, 01603 611195

*** National Busking day 01132446570

18 JULY 18-21 Bristol Wind energy Association Conference, Warwick Conference Park, 0171 404 3433

20-23 JULY Heineken Festival, 0891 222 459.

SchNEWS IN BRIEF

As SchNEWS went to press protesters had barricaded themselves into North Shields Conservative Council Offices. Over their office phone, with the sounds of a chaotic party in the background, North East Freedom Network told SchNEWS the reason for the occupation: "They won't deal with housing complaints - they support the Criminal Justice Act and they're Tories!" All the protesters have been told they will be arrested - when the police can get in!

*** Brighton's West Pier drummers have been allowed to continue their Sunday carnivals. Police agreed when over 600 revellers, who turned up to the party last week, said they would stop at sunset - when the last of the wild swirling starlings settle on the dilapidated Pier

*** Al Baker, the Greenpeace activist interviewed in SchNEWS 28/29 is offering climbing tuition - that's if he isn't flying halfway across the world today. Contact SchNEWS for mere details

*** DELAYED 'TlL OCTOBER: Criminal Justice Act sections 74-76 which place criminal sanctions on squatters and allows property owners to gain 'violent entry' against occupants. The Lord Chancellor's office seem to behaving a hard time drafting the new county court rules. Carry on squatting!

*** If anyone wants to learn the art of erecting scaffolding tripods in under two minutes (as Shell-Out did in closing Norwich's Shell fuel depot for six hours) write to PO Box Shell-Out, 217 Cowley Rd, Oxford, OX4 1XG

To subscribe to SchNEWS send 1st class stamps/donations (payable to Justice?) SchNEWS c/o on-the fiddle PO Box 2600 Brighton East Sussex. Tel: (01273) 685 913. Or pick one up @ Peace Centre, Gardener St, Brighton and around town

Justice? meet at the new kensington, kensington gardens, every Wed @ 7pm

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In rememberance of Fernando Perrera

SchNEWS, PO Box 2600, Brighton, BN2 0EF, England
Phone: +44 (0)1273 685913
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