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Mayday 2001 Oxford Circus - HoL rules no false imprisonment

winjer

winjer

holocene death beat
The House of Lords ruled yesterday that the detention of thousands of people for several hours at Oxford Circus on 1st May 2001 was not a breach of any rights.

tl;dr: "Anyone on the streets must be taken to be consenting to the possibility of being confined by the police."

The full judgment:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090128/austin-1.htm

See here for the earlier judgments:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2007/989.html
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2005/480.html
 
wtf?

So basically, if you leave your house you are implicitly obliged to accept that you may be held by the police without charge for as long as they like with no access to food, water, toilet facilities etc.

Adds a whole new meaning to the expression Social Contract. So there it is, we are now officially and undeniably a Police State.
 
was it ever going to go any other way?

who wants to start a countdown to the first use of the shiny new tazers on a protestor?
 
"While about 60% remained calm about 40% were actively hostile, pushing and throwing missiles. Those who were not pushing or throwing missiles were not dissociating themselves from the minority who were. Some members of the crowd were very violent. They broke up paving slabs and threw the debris at the police."

Lies. Quite simple lies. There were very few actively violent people in there, not one paving stone was broken, it is not possible to disassociate with people when you're in such tight enclosure, and there were plenty of people urging against violence.

We have, as usual, been sold out on state lies.
 
"The judge held that when she chose to join this demonstration she was well aware that the protest was not expected by anyone to end without serious violence. There is no suggestion that she herself was involved in any violent acts or that she had any other intention than to engage in peaceful protest. Nevertheless she willingly took the risk of violence on the part of other demonstrators with whom she chose to be present, and her own conduct was unreasonable in joining with others to obstruct the highway."

Might we not apply the same logic to anyone who goes to a football grudge match where rival firms might be meeting? Or going out drinking in most British towns.

Horseshit, immoral wrong-minded horseshit.
 
wake up and smell the fucking coffee, we've been sliding into a police state since labour got into power

and we're sliding quicker every day
 
No, it wasn't. Lois Austin was an awful claimant, and the Fairford coaches judgment laid all the groundwork for this.

"Just before 11 am the British Transport Police at King's Cross reported information that the singing of the Wombles theme song would be a sign for knives to be drawn."
 
"9. There was sufficient space within the cordon for people to walk about and there was no crushing. But conditions within it were uncomfortable. The weather was cold and wet. No food or water was provided and there was no access to toilet facilities or shelter. The appellant, like others who were present, was not adequately dressed for the occasion. She had an 11 month old baby who was in a crèche. She had planned to be on the demonstration for two or three hours before collecting her, but in the event she was prevented from doing so. Nevertheless the judge held that she was not much distressed, but was stimulated by the event. At various times in the afternoon she had a megaphone and told people not to push. She was in the company of friends throughout. When she came out of the police cordon she did not rush home but participated in a TV interview and responded to questions from the press"

'You love it you slag, she was fucking asking for it anyway.'
 
greedy banker said:
wake up and smell the fucking coffee, we've been sliding into a police state since labour got into power
Click to expand...
Tory apologist toss, the containment was fully in line with powers given to the police by Thatcher, and police practices developed in the 1980s.
 
greedy banker said:
wake up and smell the fucking coffee, we've been sliding into a police state since labour got into power

and we're sliding quicker every day
Click to expand...


Longer than that, but this is the formal transition document. The formal declaration that, in British Law, this is legal behaviour. No charge, no good reason, no due process. If you look dodgy or we don't agree with you, you only have the rights we choose to give you.
 
"The need for measures of crowd control to be adopted in the public interest is not new, however. It is frequently necessary, for example, for such measures to be imposed at football matches to ensure that rival fans do not confront each other in situations that may lead to violence. Restrictions on movement may also be imposed by the police on motorists in the interests of road safety after an accident on a motorway, or to prevent local residents from coming too close to a fire or a terrorist incident. "

So this is basically the same as a detour sign, or a couple of barriers?
 
winjer said:
Tory apologist toss, the containment was fully in line with powers given to the police by Thatcher, and police practices developed in the 1980s.
Click to expand...

well agreed PACE didn't help, neither did NI detentions, but the pace picked up like ttttttttttttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssss in 97

Also please remember that to allow a police state one has to believe in the state. That is far more comfortable for a labourite than a tory.
 
But they're was very little 'violence' - and most of the aggro came from the very aggresive policing - i.e i got whacked by a shield for walking on the pavement rather than on the road where the police wanted us and saw countless similar incidents of unprovoked violence throughout the day.

In fact lots of people were trying to keep people calm and not give the cops an excuse to pile in - mainly because we were trapped and defenceless and we would have been totally pasted.

Judge clealry a cunt there simply to green light whatever the cops want to do.
 
greedy banker said:
well agreed PACE didn't help
Click to expand...
And the Public Order Act 1986, Criminal Justice & Public Order Act 1994,
Police Act 1997 (pre-Labour), Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (pre-Labour).

Also please remember that to allow a police state one has to believe in the state. That is far more comfortable for a labourite than a tory.
Click to expand...
Hahahaha. Both show great comfort believing in a police state.
 
Aye, and this is where this is a futile argument. To pick Labour over Tories or Tory over Labour is pointless, they are both two different flavours of neo-liberals. Which jackboot do you want on your neck, which colour chains go better with your eyes?
 
Confused?! You will be....

4. 1 May 2001, May Day, was not a public holiday in England. Nevertheless the police had been expecting demonstrations.....The organisers had deliberately given no notice to the police of their intentions. They had refused to co-operate with them in any way at all. Their literature included incitement to looting and violence, multiple protests to avoid the police and the encouragement of secrecy. Their publicity material had led the police to expect a gathering on Oxford Circus at 4 pm. But no warning was given of any march or procession or of the route which the demonstrators might take. The arrival there of such a large procession at 2 pm, when the area was already busy with shoppers and traffic, took the police by surprise and led them to respond as they did.

8. Few of those who were attending the demonstration can have been unaware that there was a substantial risk of violence. On 24 April 2001 an article by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, appeared in the Evening Standard newspaper. He said that he supported the aims of the demonstration, which would be calling for the cancellation of Third World debt, the eradication of poverty, a stop to the privatisation of the London Underground and an end to pollution of the environment. But on this occasion violence was central to the objectives of its organisers. What was planned was not a peaceful protest that might go wrong but a deliberate attempt to create destruction in the capital. He urged all Londoners to stay away from it.

No great surprise as to the verdict, these fuckers had it all stitched up from the outset.
 
bluestreak said:
Aye, and this is where this is a futile argument. To pick Labour over Tories or Tory over Labour is pointless, they are both two different flavours of neo-liberals. Which jackboot do you want on your neck, which colour chains go better with your eyes?
Click to expand...

yup

although Tory is better than Labour :)
 
Fucking hell, I'd been thinking that if any case could demonstrate that the police were abusing their powers it was this one. Turns out there's no such thing as abuse of police powers, because they can do whatever the fuck they want.

What a truly cuntish ruling.

Have a look at this piece of shitweaselling:

Blair's Lords said:
If the difference between a restriction of liberty and a deprivation of liberty was to be measured merely by the duration of the restriction, it would be hard to regard what happened in this case as anything other than a deprivation of liberty. The interference with the appellant’s freedom of movement was not merely transitory, as in R (Gillan) v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis [2006] UKHL 12; [2006] 2 AC 307 where detention in the exercise of stop and search powers would ordinarily be for a few minutes only. In this case the detention that resulted from the police cordon was measured in hours, not minutes. But it is very well established that, in order to determine whether the threshold has been crossed, a much wider examination of the facts and circumstances is appropriate. In Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647, para 59, for example, the court said that a disciplinary measure which would unquestionably be deemed a deprivation of liberty were it to be applied to a civilian might not possess that characteristic when applied to a serviceman. But it would not escape the terms of article 5 if it deviated from the normal conditions of life within the armed forces of the Contracting States. In order to establish whether this was so, account should be taken of a whole range of factors such as the nature, duration, effects and manner of execution of the penalty or measure in question.
Click to expand...
 
Which was the Mayday Guerilla Gardening on Parliament Square (2000?) and which was Mayfair Monopoly (2001?). Genuinely can't remember, but I may have some helpful info if you want to PM me.

Also - so joining a demo is accepting the sins of others, is it? Like joining the Bench as a judge is taking joint responsibility for all the judge who get accused - but never done for - kerb crawling, soliciting and kiddy fiddling?
 
Don't know the details of the Mayday Monopoly but weren't the police just trying to stop Mayfair and West End getting smashed up.

Doesn't seem a totally ridiculous fear.
 
toblerone3 said:
Don't know the details of the Mayday Monopoly but weren't the police just trying to stop Mayfair and West End getting smashed up.

Doesn't seem a totally ridiculous fear.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. So when it gets tasty, they're entitled to send everyone off in the direction of Kennington Park to smash stuff up and cool down, but the police are justified in "just trying to stop Mayfair and West End getting smashed up."

Ok. :rolleyes:
 
Smashing stuff up around Kennington Park doesn't exactly have the same media profile as doing it in the middle of the West End. The police had also been criticised for allowing the digging up of Parliament Square and the graffiting of the Churchill statue the year before.

The police actions could be challenged on narrow legalistic grounds but you can understand what they were trying to do or prevent.
 
There would have been no question of there being a deprivation of liberty if the cordon had remained in place for only 20 minutes. The fact that it remained in place for much longer ought to make no difference, as the fact that it was not possible to release everyone from the cordon earlier was due to circumstances that were beyond the control of the police.
Click to expand...
64047508@N00.jpg



Those who were not demonstrators, or were seriously affected by being confined, were promptly permitted to leave
Click to expand...

I don't remember this. In fact I distinctly remember people who were clearly nothing to do with demonstration, and in some distress, being told that they could not leave.

I wonder if this is it or might it go to Europe now?
 
Indeed..I was there. I saw very minimal violence from protesters before, during or after our confinement and a lot of unprovoked
violence from the police'
And i chatted to several other prisoners in Oxford Circus that evening who were tourists, shoppers, sightseers and they were
NOT allowed to leave. I vividly remember an Australian couple waving their passports at the police and being whacked with
shields for asking to be let out.
 
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