Home | Friday 4th July 2008 | Issue 638

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PEW CREW

Brighton’s squatted social centre, the 88 London Road squat, has defied its last court order as police and bailiffs busted through the fortified doors early yesterday morning (3rd July). Occupiers of the abandoned Methodist church had already resisted one eviction attempt on 12th June (SchNEWS 632). They had been holding a regular ‘free kaff’ on the bustling street outside and had just began reopening its doors for a variety of events. There was, however, the constant realisation that the space was likely to be evicted at any moment.

This nagging fear became a reality when around eight police with a battering ram bust the door down at seven in the morning. All those inside were dragged out of the premises, with the exception of two cheeky chaps who scrambled their way into the cargo net suspended 25 foot high in the main church hall. The police had to bring in equipment to construct a scaffold tower in order to reach the net dwellers.

Police numbers swelled with boys in blue being sent from all over Sussex, as well as two FIT team Stasi members (Police Forward Intelligence Team see www.fitwatch.blogspot.com), in order to deal with a somewhat questionable public order situation. At around 10.30, the two remaining occupants were manhandled into a police van to cheers of support from the crowd that had formed outside, and the forty-strong band of coppers began to disperse. It signalled the death of a thriving space which for the past two months had been a vital hub for a variety of projects and community events in Brighton, and with any luck act it will act as a catalyst for the resurgence of a politicised squatting movement in the city...

* www.myspace.com/88londonroadsquat

ON THE VERGE
The film police tried to ban - the story of the four year campaign in Brighton to close down local bomb parts factory. EDO-MBM. DVD's are for sale on the web - £6 incl. p&p - buy it through paypal off the website, or send in a cheque written to 'Justice' to our address... www.schnews.org.uk/on-the-verge

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