I’m looking at this story, ‘Wilderness Centre squatters evicted in dawn police move’, and that bit where a policeman says, “Squatting is a civil matter but officers accompanied bailiffs acting on behalf of the judge to ensure there was no breach of the peace and no disruption to the local community” reminded me about how much the police will use the excuse of breach of the peace, and/or disruption. This is when they don’t claim that a member of a partnership has committed theft of property of the same partnership by picking up a copy of financial details from a table and moving it five feet, then reading it.
If that sounds a little cryptic, I’m talking about a scene that was quite out of ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ at the Barton & Tredworth Neighbourhood Partnership AGM on Wednesday evening, when that action was described as ‘disruptive’. Now, it may have been slightly rude (though not quite as rude as a chairman, in fact two chairmen, giving reports about the past year without once mentioning the dismissal of the secretary, yours truly, and still failing to thank me for all my hard work over the past couple of years), but it clearly wasn’t theft, any more than I would feel inclined to dial 101 if one of my children took a bag of crisps to eat without asking. Only the police tried to argue that it was, mind.
Furthermore, the partnership has procedures it can apply in the event of disruption, if it feels that is happening. True, the final sanction is that ‘the individual should be requested to leave the meeting’, and it doesn’t cover what should happen if that individual refuses to do so, but in those circumstances, a responsible chair has two options; close the meeting or wind their head back in and continue with the meeting. Not to suspend the meeting temporarily and let two police officers make up justifications for arrest as they go along.
This is what I suffered because the acting chair, Philip Lowery, lost control of the meeting, and PC Matt Puttock (2134) decided he could arrest me over the ‘bag of crisps’, or was it for wishing to remain at the meeting, after the partnership papers had been forcibly taken off me, again, a partnership member?. The effects of having my head banged on a hard floor several times don’t show up so well in a photograph, but those of having the same policeman, Phil Hopkins (2142), then stand on my arm [kneel, as I now know in hindsight], as I was still pinned to the floor by PC Puttock and PC Damian Lea (8), do.
A great day in the history of the partnership, and Barton & Tredworth Community police. Other abuses of authority are available. If you have any information about them, feel free to relate them here, quoting incident number, 1-800-JACKBOOT.
For the record, given the proximity of local council elections, also present at this meeting were county councillor for Barton & Tredworth, Sonia Friend (Labour), city councillor for the ward, Sajid Patel (Conservative), and his colleague, candidate Nasreen Akhtar, who doesn’t actually live in the ward, and, not being elected yet, had no grounds to be at this meeting. Well, that’s what some people think. I’m inclined to think that as she hosts a radio show for GFM, just round the block, she squeaks in, but I’m the sort of person who would say, someone wants to read a document, let ’em read it…
Footnote: although the way Nasreen Akhtar ducked behind Saj Patel, when I turned my camera phone towards the loudmouth Mo Patel, suggests she might be equally inclined to duck issues as a councillor…
April 24, 2012 at 10:26 am
And it’s not that I don’t appreciate the publicity, Eddie (107 views, and only posted yesterday afternoon), but you might want to use the B&T board to advertise the Tredworth Fun Day next Saturday, or the Mum’s (sic) & Munchies event the Al-Ashraf ‘school’ have scheduled to clash with it. Or the Street Reps meeting taking place on March the 5th at the Barton Community Centre. Shaun Moore obviously won’t…
Ask Tony Ward (tony-st-james@hotmail.com), Ismail Mehter (finaltouches@mail.com), or Pat Hurley (Pathurley54@aol.com) for details.
May 1, 2012 at 10:49 am
Were you charged with this “theft”? and are you taking any kind of action, Joe?
May 1, 2012 at 11:42 am
Hi Alex.
Nope, charged with section 5, public order, and then, oddly, after being driven round the back of Barton Street police station, ‘de-arrested’ for that, and arrested instead by the same officer for ‘breach of the peace’, while sitting in the back of the van, vexed but quite incapable of breaching anything, even if I’d wanted to. I was more interested in getting them to loosen the cuff around my left wrist, which had been snapped on way too tight, and was cutting into my skin.
The action I’m taking, having discussed it last Monday with Sergeant Karen Horsley, is what’s know as a Local Resolution Process. It’s kind of a less satisfactory way of holding a police officer to account, but for reasons I can’t divulge At This Time might be equally as effective as a more official complaint. How the process works is that PS Horseley undertakes to carry out certain steps to investigate the incident, and I have to agree to be satisfied if she completes all those steps. The rub is that the last step is to decide what, or if, action is required, and I have to be satisfied with that as well, either way.
On the other hand, one of the first steps involves taking statements from 6-8 witnesses, and perhaps I’m being naive, or even a bit of a smartass, but I don’t see how I can be ‘satisfied’ that that step has been completed without seeing the statements (and since they are statements about what happened to me, they should be convered by Data Protection). If so, it will be very interesting to see what version of events is recollected by certain individuals…
And I have to add this footnote, Alex, that if I’ve ever made ‘nasty’ remarks about Eddie, I wasn’t the one who started it, and at least everything I’ve said was true. Eddie has never attempted to substantiate his own claims that I have lied, or taken action against ‘Reg’ for similar false allegations. You might want to ask E sometime if he counts the spammer accounts he disables almost immediately towards the member list of 6,264, and what the total would be without them. Going by the GL3 experience, I’d guess at 300, tops. It’s a realistic figure, I think, but I understand how a vain person would like people to think there were more.
May 1, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Interesting stuff Joe, thanks for replying. I wish you well with your action.
May 1, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Cheers, Alex. BTW, the AGM wasn’t quorate, so is being held again on May 30th. Kinda wish they could have done a head count before mine was bounced off the floor…
May 1, 2012 at 1:20 pm
‘Rant’ is certainly a very popular word on the Boards. Has ‘Ablokehere’ come back from her holiday yet?