This country is becoming worse than a third world banana republic for human rights abuse.
A friend of mine was arrested without any specific charge over his website which highlights how his children were abused with clear proof but no action taken. Yesterday(Tuesday) he held a demo to protest at his treatment.
I received this from him today(I have his permission to post this) :-
You may have heard that I and two other campaigners, Mike ****** and Keith *********, were arrested yesterday as we prepared to hold a peaceful, orderly demonstration on the pavement outside Wolverhampton Police station. We were all released yesterday evening, after being locked up for about 10 hours. We were not charged or bailed to return, and the Police intend no further action against us.
Now that the dust has settled, I've pieced together what happened.
I sent out a press release before-hand, stating our intention to protest outside the police station about the police continually arresting and harassing me without justification. http://www.megaphonedad.net/on-line%...eaflet%202.pdf . I later discovered that one local paper, the Express and Star, decided to forward it to the Police. When I arrived at 8.45 am, I could see police officers guarding all the entrances to the building. They spotted me, and 2 officers followed me to a cafe where I met up with Mike and Keith. Within a few minutes, there were 6 officers crowded around us inside the cafe, and after a while, they received instruction on their radios to arrest us, which they did.
They told us they had received intelligence that we intended to climb on the roof of the police station, and damage it, and so they were arresting us on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
The intelligence can have amounted to no more than our press release which had been forwarded to them. No reasonable person reading it could have believed that it indicated an intention to climb on the building and damage it, and if that had been our intention we are hardly likely to have put out a press release. When they eventually questioned me it came out that their reasoning went something like this: these 3 people in this cafe are linked to fathers rights protests. Fathers rights protestors climb buildings; therefore these 3 people intend to climb our building; they could not climb our building without damaging it in the process; therefore they must have conspired to criminally damage our building. Wow!
The Police's true purpose was to prevent us standing on their door-step and exposing their previous harassment of me. They couldn't arrest us for that, so instead they contrived this nonsense about us intending to damage the building. They are shamelessly abusing their powers in order to stop me speaking out.
Conspiracy is an indictable offence, and so arrest for conspiracy allowed them to search each of our homes while we were detained in the cells. They searched mine and took away my computer, and some documents, which they returned to me when I was released without charge yesterday evening. However, had they found grounds, however spurious, to continue their investigations, they could have retained my computer for months, and without it, I couldn't have carried on with my consultancy business. They may have searched Mike's and Keith's homes as well.
The implications for all of us in this movement could be serious. If other police forces learn from this and do the same it could mean that, simply because of our historic association with roof-top protests, any equal parenting protesters who are planning a peaceful demo may automatically be suspected of conspiring to commit criminal damage, leading to their arrest, search of their home, and removal of key items like computers!
What price democracy and freedom of speech now? On a practical level, the next step is for the 3 of us to sue the police. If they are allowed to get away with this, they will believe they can get away with anything.
Regards,
Ray
www.megaphonedad.net
A friend of mine was arrested without any specific charge over his website which highlights how his children were abused with clear proof but no action taken. Yesterday(Tuesday) he held a demo to protest at his treatment.
I received this from him today(I have his permission to post this) :-
You may have heard that I and two other campaigners, Mike ****** and Keith *********, were arrested yesterday as we prepared to hold a peaceful, orderly demonstration on the pavement outside Wolverhampton Police station. We were all released yesterday evening, after being locked up for about 10 hours. We were not charged or bailed to return, and the Police intend no further action against us.
Now that the dust has settled, I've pieced together what happened.
I sent out a press release before-hand, stating our intention to protest outside the police station about the police continually arresting and harassing me without justification. http://www.megaphonedad.net/on-line%...eaflet%202.pdf . I later discovered that one local paper, the Express and Star, decided to forward it to the Police. When I arrived at 8.45 am, I could see police officers guarding all the entrances to the building. They spotted me, and 2 officers followed me to a cafe where I met up with Mike and Keith. Within a few minutes, there were 6 officers crowded around us inside the cafe, and after a while, they received instruction on their radios to arrest us, which they did.
They told us they had received intelligence that we intended to climb on the roof of the police station, and damage it, and so they were arresting us on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
The intelligence can have amounted to no more than our press release which had been forwarded to them. No reasonable person reading it could have believed that it indicated an intention to climb on the building and damage it, and if that had been our intention we are hardly likely to have put out a press release. When they eventually questioned me it came out that their reasoning went something like this: these 3 people in this cafe are linked to fathers rights protests. Fathers rights protestors climb buildings; therefore these 3 people intend to climb our building; they could not climb our building without damaging it in the process; therefore they must have conspired to criminally damage our building. Wow!
The Police's true purpose was to prevent us standing on their door-step and exposing their previous harassment of me. They couldn't arrest us for that, so instead they contrived this nonsense about us intending to damage the building. They are shamelessly abusing their powers in order to stop me speaking out.
Conspiracy is an indictable offence, and so arrest for conspiracy allowed them to search each of our homes while we were detained in the cells. They searched mine and took away my computer, and some documents, which they returned to me when I was released without charge yesterday evening. However, had they found grounds, however spurious, to continue their investigations, they could have retained my computer for months, and without it, I couldn't have carried on with my consultancy business. They may have searched Mike's and Keith's homes as well.
The implications for all of us in this movement could be serious. If other police forces learn from this and do the same it could mean that, simply because of our historic association with roof-top protests, any equal parenting protesters who are planning a peaceful demo may automatically be suspected of conspiring to commit criminal damage, leading to their arrest, search of their home, and removal of key items like computers!
What price democracy and freedom of speech now? On a practical level, the next step is for the 3 of us to sue the police. If they are allowed to get away with this, they will believe they can get away with anything.
Regards,
Ray
www.megaphonedad.net
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