Green councillors condemn climate camp policing

11 August 2008

Brighton and Hove Green councillors have slammed the “heavy-handed” policing operation surrounding the climate camp at Kingsnorth power station in Kent, including the Sussex Constabulary’s involvement.

Brighton Green councillors Amy Kennedy and Vicky Wakefield-Jarrett attended the camp and took part in a march to Kingsnorth power station on Saturday 10th August.

They demonstrated peacefully against plans to build a new coal-fired power station on the site.

Both councillors have expressed concerns regarding the "massive" policing operation surrounding the camp and the protest.

22 forces from across the UK were drafted into the area, including the Sussex Constabulary, at a cost to the tax-payer of over £6 million.

Nearly two thousand protesters were stopped and searched by police officers as they attempted to come in and out of the Climate Camp site.

Protestors were searched under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, cited as a search undertaken where ‘terrorism powers or violence are anticipated’.

In a letter of complaint to Martin Richards, Chief Constable of Sussex Police, Cllr Kennedy wrote:

“I was stopped and thoroughly searched on several occasions, being dealt with on the last occasion by our own local Sussex constabulary.

I was physically searched by a female officer, and while she and her colleagues were personable enough, I felt personally violated by the physical search.

“It went far beyond a reasonable ‘pat down’ in my opinion (the phrase ‘heavy-handedness’ springs to mind quite literally).

“I was neither under caution or arrest, but felt I could not voice my discomfort for fear of being made to be so.”

Cllr Wakefield-Jarrett said: “I understand that policing of demonstrations and protests is always necessary to ensure public safety.

“However the overall response driven by the Kent police to this year's Climate Camp was wholly disproportionate to the perceived threat posed by those attending the camp.

“It was ludicrous for the police to confiscate items such as children's crayons and protest banners as ‘offensive weapons.’

“I found a number of the tactics employed by the police deeply unsettling and disturbing.

“These included helicopters flying very low over the campsite during the early hours of the morning (disrupting people's sleep and causing anxiety), police floodlights erected each evening, shining directly onto the campsite and again disrupting people's sleep, and constant surveillance performed by the police FIT [Forward Intelligence Team]”.

“I would be very interested to know how crime rates in Brighton & Hove and across Sussex were affected during the week of the 4th-11th August by the involvement of the Sussex Constabulary in this needlessly aggressive operation.

“People who had come together to protest peacefully against the ever-pressing, urgent threat posed by our continuing reliance on fossil fuels were left frightened and intimidated.”

Notes to editors:

Media: for more information please contact Lizzie Deane Green Party External Communications Coordinator on 07931 231390.

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