stop and search

Climate protestors this weekend won a major High Court victory against the unlawful police stop and search operation used against protesters at their camp in Kingsnorth, Kent in August 2008.

It had been the largest and most expensive such operation in UK history involving 26 police forces. Led by Kent police, these forces carried out a continuous, systematic and unlawful mass stop and search regime

In the High Court the police accepted an Order that the searches of the three claimants had been 'unlawful', and constituted a violation oftheir human rights to privacy (breach of Article 8 of the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights), to freedom of expression (breach ofArticle 10) and freedom of association (breach of Article 11).

Climate camp legal team have suggested that the 3,500 other searches carried under the same search laws (s1 PACE) would also have been unlawful.. All those searched under such laws can now sue the police and submit claims for damages. Those affected should log on to the climate camp website http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/ to see how to proceed with a claim.

The legal team claim that this case was won despite police efforts to deny there was any systematic stop and search policy. Their ludicrous position collapsed after a key 'smoking gun' document came to light revealing that the police 'bronze commanders' in charge of the operation atKingsnorth were systematically giving briefings for blanket stop and searches.

Three FITwatch defendants who were arrested and imprisoned for four days for photographing the stop and search operation at Kingsnorth are also persuing legal action.

How 'charming' will the Met be at this year's climate camp?

As the open letter from climate camp to the Met clearly states, the police do not have a happy record when it comes to climate camp. There have been blanket stop and searches, long periods of containment, and endlessly invasive surveillance. FIT have had a prominent role, and a carte blanche to do what they want, accumulating personal data from stop and search, and obtaining photographic images of everyone attending. At Kingsnorth last year even journalists were hassled, followed and filmed, while FITwatchers were violently arrested and held for four days in prison for taking photos of police officers and asking for their numbers.

This year it will all be different, we are told. The Met will be smiley and chatty, happy to communicate and negotiate with protesters. There'll be no heads busted or shields shoved in people's faces, no kettling, no night flights from the helicopter, no verbal abuse from police officers and no unlawful stop and searches.

The Met have promised a a "'community-style' policing operation that will limit the use of surveillance units and stop-and-searches wherever possible." according to the Guardian. Which sounds good. But what exactly does 'wherever possible' mean? And how much will surveillance be 'limited'?

According to the legal team, the police have said that "searches and FIT will not be over used as a tactic but FIT will be present as the Camp forms and people arrive and for the swoop." Presumably, once everyone has arrived, and they have taken the pics and identified this years prime 'targets', the FIT will be content to take a less prominent role anyway. As was documented in the report of policing on Kingsnorth, they have their covert surveillance operatives to take over then anyway.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, perhaps?

FIT teams admit they are out to disrupt, not just to watch.

“FIT deployment was highly effective and gained good intelligence and disruption”.

That was the view of a FIT co-ordinator of the operation at Kingsnorth Climate Camp last year.

A FIT Silver commander also commended the way that Kent police had used their ANPR (automatic number plate reader) to pick up protesters vehicles so that they could be stopped, questioned and searched. “an innovative use of legislation for disruption”, he applauded.

These are the remarkably frank comments contained in the Structured Debrief of Climate Camp policing. This was produced by the NPIA, the National Policing Improvement Agency, the structure which is supposed to spread best practice around the police forces.

In this case the best practice appears to be using legislation other than for the purposes it was intended, and doing their best to ‘disrupt’ protest.

The accompanying report from South Yorkshire police confirms the involvement of FIT in directing stop and search, and reveals that the massive collection of personal details through stop and search forms almost proved too much for police resources. “The capacity of the intelligence cell was clearly challenged when the scale of PACE/1 form submission became a reality.”

Stop and search legislation was written with the express intention of NOT allowing police to collect personal details in this way. So this must be yet another example of police interpreting legislation in an ‘innovative’ way.

Not only do the police feel confident in being able to bend the law as they see fit, they are arrogant enough to brag about it in a public document. Astounding.

Proud to wear the uniform, well some of it

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