Finalist in the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Awards

I got a lovely phonecall in late summer/early spring that I’d been nominated for the Sheila McKechnie Foundation’s Campaigner Awards. Eventually it emerged that my nominee was the lovely Tim Gee – author of Counterpower. Thank you, Tim!

I was equal parts delighted and embarrassed, to be honest, and didn’t know what to say to the interview panel about ‘your campaign’ (which one?! I kind of have two…). But either way, I went in for the interview and told the panel about the royal wedding incident which got me involved, told them about the Pageantry & Precrime website I set up to gather all the statements and videos about the policing into one place, and how I’d reported from the High Court every day of the trial.

I told them about my other (more ongoing) work with Netpol, the network for police monitoring. When they asked for references the lovely director of Netpol, Val Swain, and Ronan McNern from Occupy Records both said lovely things about me. (Thank you, guys!)

And in August I got a very nice phonecall that I was a finalist in the London Social Justice category, and please come to the awards ceremony hosted by Jon Snow.

Me & Tisha. God my face is SO shiny

I took Val as my plus one, we met Jon Snow and ate nice canapes. It was a lovely surprise to bump into singer/songwriter and old friend Chris T-T there – he was singing a song to close the awards ceremony – and Tisha, a fellow legal observer who was also a finalist – for her work with environmental campaign Frack Off.

And here are all the finalists and winners. Details of what we do are available on the Sheila McKechnie Foundation website. (I’m to the far right, looking awkward.)

The grand prize in each category was some one-to-one personalised tuition in how to be a better campaigner. Much as I’d love to have won it was a bizarre and wonderful surprise to be part of it at all. Nice canapes in St Martin-in-the-Fields and standing in the same room as Zac Goldsmith is never what I had in mind when I first decided that the Met were not going to get away with what they’d done. However – it’s absolutely brilliant to know there’s an organisation recognising and supporting the campaigners. As soon as I have any annual leave spare next year I’ll be doing one of their training courses. Whoo! Thank you and goodnight.

http://www.smk.org.uk/london-social-justice-2012/
http://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2012/09/pedal-on-parliament-campaigner-shortlisted-for-award/

Pageantry & pre-crime: Royal Wedding arrests Judicial Review begins Monday at the High Court

This Monday 28 May, sees a landmark Judicial Review begin at the High Court examining policing tactics – including the use of ‘pre-crime’ arrests – employed around last year’s Royal Wedding, which will likely impact future policing of upcoming events such as the Jubilee and the Olympics. [1]

Hannah Eiseman-Renyard, one of the fifteen people granted leave to challenge their arrests by way of a Judicial Review, said: “Saturday 29 April last year was a day of contrasts. On one hand there was pageantry, celebration, pomp and ceremony as William Windsor and Kate Middleton got married. However, on the other hand, dozens of innocent people were arrested by the Metropolitan Police, handcuffed and detained for crimes which they had not committed, in an apparent attempt to silence potential dissent.”

“These ‘pre-crime’ arrests were supposedly to pre-emptively ‘prevent a breach of the peace’. In reality, they are part of a trend of increasingly heavy-handed tactics employed against peaceful protestors, aimed at creating a ‘chilling effect’ to dissuade others from protesting in the future. With this Judicial Review, we plan to challenge the validity of this style of policing and our unnecessary arrests – the use of such tactics raises questions of constitutional significance with regard to the role of policing in a democracy.”

The Judicial Review hearing will be heard with three other cases arising out of the police’s actions over the course of the Royal Wedding bank holiday weekend: two concerning raids on squats on 28 April by officers of the Metropolitan Police Service and the other arising out of another pre-emptive arrest of a minor on the day of the Royal Wedding. The 15 claimants, who were all released without charge once the public celebrations had finished, are being represented by Karon Monaghan QC and Ruth Brander. [2] The claimants in the three other cases have different legal teams.

“It is our view that the treatment of our clients was unlawful under common law and was in breach of their fundamental rights,” said a spokesperson from Bhatt Murphy, the civil liberties solicitors who are representing the claimants. “The apparent existence of an underlying policy that resulted in those arrests is a matter of considerable concern with implications for all those engaged in peaceful dissent or protest.”

Who was arrested?
Those arrested were not a cohesive group and they did not have cohesive aims. Some were people on their way to peaceful protests, others were people the police merely suspected of being protestors. Those arrested include members of the ‘Charing Cross 10’ who were on their way to a republican street party, the ‘Starbucks Zombies’ who were arrested from an Oxford Street branch of Starbucks for wearing zombie fancy dress, and a man who was simply walking in London and was arrested by plainclothes officers because he was ‘a known activist’.

Daniel Randall, one of the ‘Charing Cross 10′ arrestees, said: “The British Transport Police officer’s comment confirmed our suspicions that the police were using pre-emptive arrests as a political tactic to keep republican voices off the streets and out of the public eye.”

Erich, a Starbucks Zombie arrestee, said: “I was told by the police, ‘if you’re going to dress like that, you’ve got to expect to be arrested’. And I thought I had to break the law to be arrested.”

Notes
[1] The website Pageantry and Precrime has blog posts, accounts, and footage from various arrests on the day of the royal wedding. It aims to gather all public domain information on the court case into one place http://pageantryandprecrime.wordpress.com/
[2] Bhatt Murphy is a leading civil liberties firm which specialises in police misconduct, prisoners’ rights, deaths in custody and immigration detention.
Karon Monaghan QC -
http://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/Members/29/Karon%20Monaghan.aspx.
Ruth Brander – http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/ruth_brander.cfm