Tag Archives: Avon & Somerset Police

History Wars: Sanitising the history of protest in Bristol

Riot policing

From our Violent Disorder Correspondent

The violence which surrounded the ‘Kill the Bill’ protest on Sunday 21 March catapulted Bristol into national headlines. The predictable outrage and condemnation by politicians and business leaders was magnified by gruesome statements (now unmasked as lies) coming from Avon & Somerset Police of officers with ‘punctured lungs’ and ‘compound fractures’. Meanwhile, the reason for the demonstration, a Tory Bill to repress protests, and the numbers of protestors injured by police in full public order kit, armed with shields, clubs and pepper spray was usefully obscured

After the initial ‘outrage’ news items, journalists began focusing on feature articles which attempted to contextualise the ‘Bridewell riot’. One well-read article ‘A city of protest: Bristol’s history of resistance’ on the BBC website began with the questionable premise that the city was somehow historically exceptional. It claimed that “The city’s counter-culture identity reaches back through the centuries”. This somewhat ludicrous claim was followed by some of the worst historical analysis we have seen for a while. Claiming dubious validity by referencing Mayor Marvin Rees’s controversial History Commission, the article continued by quoting a University of Bristol academic who was “investigating the city’s heritage of protest”. They stated:

There is a long history of protest in Bristol and a radical self-identify is more prevalent here, but why Bristol and not other cities is a difficult point. Bristol has always been a city of protest with an alternative identity that pushes back on those mainstream or established narratives. Protest is very richly woven into the city’s history and I think the people of Bristol today are influenced by that narrative of protest.

Apart from not making much sense (radical self-identify?), failing to explain what period they were referring to and vaguely talking about ‘narratives’ they also claimed that Bristol had “always been a city of protest with an alternative identity”. This begged some questions. What is this so-called alternative identity that Bristol has had for centuries? And isn’t protest woven into the fabric of many cities?  Ok…give them a break you might say…let them get into some detail. They did and it got worse.

Centres of protest like Stokes Croft or St Paul’s are a stone’s throw away from more affluent areas like Clifton, where you also have a high student population where people are very interested in a different way of living.

This statement tells us more about the bubble where this academic hangs out than making much sense. Bristol’s centuries long ‘alternative identity’ is reduced temporally and spatially to the last 15 years and to Stokes Croft (which most Bristolians regard as a street rather than an area) with the added bonus of ‘edgy’ St Pauls. A different way of living? Bristol University? Yes, maybe a route to top jobs and wealth for public school and middle-class kids, but hardly a hotbed of counterculture.

Rounding off their contribution, the ‘expert on protest’ jumped to the late eighteenth century claiming “the Bristol Bridge riots in 1793 as the first notable clash with the establishment in the city”. Writing off almost all the 1700s in Bristol suggests social peace in the supposed ‘deferent century’. In reality, as most local historians know, Bristol was riddled with confrontations between crowds and the ‘establishment’ in the ‘riotous century’. From ‘moral economy’ food riots led by women who reduced prices by force, to turnpike riots and wage riots led by the Kingswood colliers and East Bristol Weavers, ‘collective bargaining by riot’ was a fairly normal method of direct action in a deeply undemocratic society.

At this point the article began to really lose its way, Exposing more about the current politics of the BBC and some of the contributing historians than teaching us any coherent history. The following timeline was offered as a guideline to the exceptionalism of protests in Bristol:

(BBC) Timeline of protests in Bristol

1793: The Bristol Bridge riots

1831: Queens Square Reform riots

1963: The Bristol bus boycotts

1980: St Paul’s riots

2011: Stokes Croft Tesco protests and riots

2019: Extinction Rebellion protests

February 2020: Greta Thunberg climate change rally

June 2020: Black Lives Matter protests

As anyone knows who has looked at the history of protest in any city, anywhere in the world, deciding what to include and exclude in a timeline is very difficult as there is so much protest, in so many different forms. Even if we concentrated on one form, say riots, the list would fill several pages and that would be unfinished. Looking at the above timeline, there are huge glaring gaps and massive omissions. So nothing happened over the 132 years between the 1831 ‘reform riots’ and the Bristol Bus boycotts of the 1960s? Really? The number of struggles connected to protest wiped out by the timeline in this period alone is truly remarkable: labour history, women’s history, enfranchisement, education, housing, healthcare, socialism, poor laws, anti-fascism, LGBT history, unemployed marches, communists, soldiers strikes, anti-war demonstrations, prisons etc etc.

As for riots, clearly only those that ‘count’ are to be counted. If the one-day event in St Pauls in April 1980 is alright, why not the two nights of rioting in Southmead that followed immediately after? Or the three nights of rioting in Hartcliffe in 1992 in response to the killing of two residents by police? Or perhaps the Sidney Cooke paedophile riot at Broadbury Road police station in 1998 led by local women? And the Poll tax riots of 1990? If the so-called Tesco’s riot of 2011 gets a tick, why not the massive wave of rioting and looting that occurred a few months later in August 2011 across England?

Is the history of protest being sanitised on the basis of social class and to some extent ethnicity? When St Pauls rioted in 1980 it is justified, when Hartcliffe did, it must be condemned, ignored or belittled. After all, what have working class people got to get angry about? This stinks of liberal politicos and academics with a social-democratic narrative trying to control the historical agenda of what is acceptable protest and what isn’t. This becomes clearer later in the article when we are informed:

Protests like the Bristol Bus Boycott were organised with clear aims and strategies which minimises demonstrations turning into something different.

I guess the ‘something different’ was a reference to the Bridewell ‘riot’ on the previous Sunday. A pattern is beginning to emerge, sensible, peaceful, organised, Bus Boycott campaign good….Anti-police bill demonstration bad. This assumes, of course, that peaceful protest works? Does anyone remember the massive CND demonstrations of the 1970s and 80s when millions marched legally, sensibly and peacefully to try and stop the introduction of first-strike nuclear weapons and the potential for mass destruction? Failure. Or the Stop the War marches of 2003 when millions marched legally, sensibly and peacefully to stop the invasion of Iraq? Failure. Compare that with hundreds of thousands breaking the law by refusing to pay the Poll Tax, storming city councils and famously rioting in London in 1990 which finished off the ‘Community Charge’ and led to the fall of the Thatcher cabal of right-wing nutters. Or thousands of miners going on strike, shutting power stations down and physically confronting the police in the 1970s which brought the anti-Union Tory government down. Or the Black Lives Matter protestors solving a century-long festering sore by pulling down the Colston statue after years of failed petitioning and peaceful protests.

If you think the historical debate is irrelevant to the protests around the Police Bill then fair enough. However, Bristol’s elected Mayor disagrees with you. In a Facebook video addressed to the city the day after the first protest at Bridewell Marvin Rees stated:

I absolutely condemn the violence we saw in Bristol last night. It was a display of selfish, self-indulgent, self-centred violence by a group of people who were looking for any opportunity to enter into physical confrontation….We have a history of politically significant protest, like Chartists and Suffragettes protesting for emancipation, trade unions striking and campaigning for jobs and rights at work. This was not that. Last night’s action was politically illiterate and increases the likelihood of the policing bill passing. The riot is not worthy of being mentioned alongside the very legitimate debate about the bill…..We won’t allow these people to hijack our city’s story.

Despite the obvious fact that the violence outside Bridewell meant that the ‘legitimate debate’ about the ‘Policing Bill’, which had been hardly publicised, was suddenly all over the media and forced politicians to start commenting on it, there were some more worrying signs in Rees’s statement. Odd as it seems, Rees appears to have appointed himself judge of what is ‘acceptable’ protest both now and in the past, and guardian of the ‘city’s story’ (whatever that is). Several commentators have noticed this Orwellian turn from the present to the past (and we suppose to mapping out the future) and the contradictions inherent in his statement. My advice is if you are going to set yourself up as the judge of ‘acceptable protest’ then at least read some history.

If the Suffragettes are ‘good’ then is Rees suggesting that mass campaigns of criminal damage, arson and bombing are the way forward for the Anti-Policing Bill protesters? If the Chartists are ‘good’ then would planning for an armed Republican insurrection and forming your own organised and armed force to deal with the Police on demonstrations be useful strategy and tactics for the protestors? If Trade Unions are good then would Rees support mass strikes over Bristol City Council redundancies due to austerity measures?…. Like fuck he would. It looks to me like Rees has either swallowed a sanitised, social-democratic historical narrative or that he really doesn’t know what he is talking about.

There may be an explanation to Rees’ turn to the historical and that is his flagship committee. The ‘We are Bristol (University)’ History Commission set up in the wake of the pulling down of the statue of Edward Colston during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in June last year. Perhaps this has spurred him to learn about some ‘radical history’. The irony, of course, is that it was a ‘bad protest’ that forced the Mayor to take the issue of the city’s contested history seriously after years of ignoring it. Will the ‘We are Bristol (University)’ History Commission try to become the arbiter of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ protest history whilst itself being the product of what it would call a ‘bad’ protest?

For many of us who spent years challenging the sanitisation of the history of Edward Colston by City elites the move by Rees and his ‘academics in tow’ to now sanitise and ring-fence the history of protest in Bristol when faced by a real and vital protest movement is both ironic and dumb, but also boringly predictable.

Ends—–

Green party Mayoral candidate re-writing history! See his tweet – some hilarious comments

The Bristol 24/7 article demonstrates how desperate the bosses, state & middle class are to de-escalate the situation so we’re all peaceful –

https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/peaceful-scenes-throughout-fourth-kill-the-bill-protest-in-bristol/

– quote “Teams of officers with riot gear were poised well out of the way…”. Yeah like 75m away hiding in the NCP carpark next to Bridewell (with spotters on the roof), also 6 vanloads nearby in Deep St.

‘FUCK SARAH EVERARD’ SHOUT POLICE BEFORE KNOCKING MOURNER UNCONSCIOUS

Everard

People gathered at College Green last week to protest a part of the ‘Police Crackdown Bill’ that targets the Gypsy, Traveller, and Roma community. The bill gives the Police new powers to fine and imprison people, simply for residing in a vehicle at the side of the road. It also gives Police the power to confiscate the homes of people they ‘suspect’ will commit trespass at some point in the future. The bill effectively bans and criminalises anyone who lives nomadically – whether through culture, choice, or necessity.  

The protest began peacefully with people sat on the grass around tents and placards. The atmosphere was relaxed and calm as speeches were made, people danced, and others laid flowers and lit candles for Sarah Everard at the memorial to her. From here, ‘Chloe’ takes up the story. This is her full statement:  

My name is Chloe. I was at the ‘Kill the Bill’ peaceful protest on College Green last Tuesday. My grandad was part of the Traveller community. I wanted to go along to show my support for the Gypsy, Traveller, and Roma communities threatened by the bill. I also wanted to take flowers to the Sarah Everard memorial. I have been working so much lately, I haven’t had the chance to go. I went with my friend Sophie. We are both shop workers from Knowle, Bristol. I am 25, Sophie is 22. 

We placed our flowers and stood there reading the messages. Although it was sad, I felt so moved by the memorial and all the flowers and messages people had left there.  

We had been there for about 20 minutes when a gang of riot Police ran up to us from behind. They started smashing up the memorial. They were kicking and stomping on the flowers and teddy bears. They were so angry. It looked like they were trying to make a point.  

My friend Sophie took a step towards them and said: ‘Please don’t… this is a memorial for Sarah Everard’. The Police Officer said: ‘F*ck Sarah Everard’, and hit her over the head with his baton. The force knocked her off her feet, and her head hit the ground with a thud. As she was laying on the ground, he kicked her in the stomach. I started screaming and a second Police Officer hit me in the face with his riot shield and I fell to the ground. Blood was pouring from my nose

I couldn’t see Sophie at this point, there were too many legs in the way. I struggled to get to my feet. The last thing I saw was Sophie being dragged off by her hair – completely unresponsive. 

I was hysterical and crying at this point. Everything seemed a blur. I eventually found Sophie and she was conscious, but very confused about where we were and what we were doing there. 

The next day, we phoned the Police to report what happened. The Officer told us we were lying, and said: ”You’re lucky we’re not arresting you for criminal damage”. 

My view of the Police has completely changed. They acted like terrorists. The Officers should be punished for what they did to us, but I don’t think they will”. [Statement Ends] 

We showed this statement to Bristol Mayor – Marvin Rees. He has refused to condemn the violence meted out to Chloe and Sophie, and said in a statement: ‘Police in Bristol have shown they are capable of managing protests well and with sensitivity’.  

We also sent Chloe’s statement to all four Labour MP’s in Bristol; Kerry McCarthy, Thangam Debbonaire, Karin Smyth, and Darren Jones. Each one refused to criticise or condemn the actions of the Police. Not one of them offered any kind of sympathy or regret at the way Chloe and Sophie were treated. 

An unelected, unaccountable group of corporate chancers calling themselves the ‘Bristol City Leaders group’ have heaped praise on the Police saying: ‘We have complete confidence in the way Police have acted’. Despite many not actually living in Bristol, they have taken it upon themselves to speak for all of Bristol, as they proclaim: ‘The protestors are nothing but thugs who demean us all’. 

We showed Chloe’s statement to five members of the shady ‘Bristol City Leaders group’, who some say is just a rebrand of the Merchant Venturers. These include: Ben Lowndes (Social – Communications Consultancy), Oona Goldsworthy (Brunel Care), Professor Steve West (Vice Chancellor – UWE), the Bishop of Bristol – Vivienne Faull, and Andy Forbes (Principal of City of Bristol College). We asked if they would consider retracting and disowning the group statement. They all declined. They also refused to add their names to growing calls for an independent inquiry. 

Bristol City Council’s ‘Women’s Commission’ recently led a campaign called ‘Bristol, a zero-tolerance city’ which encouraged bystanders to ‘report violence against women, and raise awareness of gender-based violence through staff training’. We showed Chloe’s statement to several members including Vice-Chair Anna Smith, who is also CEO of women’s charity ‘One25’. Shockingly, Anna Smith declined to condemn the Police, and refused to include ‘One25’ in a list of organisations calling for an independent inquiry. 

We showed Chloe’s statement to a serving Police officer in the Avon & Somerset Police. This is his reply:

”I can honestly say, in over 30 years service I have never witnessed such violence and brutality as this week. The total lack of professionalism and disregard for rules and procedure is astounding. Chloe’s statement is sickening to read. I am amazed she isn’t seriously injured. Their actions were deplorable. I watched the footage from that night. I saw a Police officer punch a woman in the face without any provocation. He was twice her size and strength. There is no justification in the way she was hit. Just mindless thuggery. 

I watched the footage of a man taking repeated blows to the head. Even as he lay on the ground dazed, the officer continued to reign down blows of his riot shield. That is what would be classed as inappropriate use of the shield. He was out of control. 

It sounds hard to believe right now, but there are some good people in the Police. Our job is extremely difficult at the best of times. We rely on the consent of the public. It’s not just a phrase, our job would be impossible without it. What makes me angry, is the fact that in the 80’s, the Police had a very toxic relationship with some parts, and some communities in this city. Since then we have worked bloody hard to repair that relationship and gain the trust and good will of those communities. Now it seems all that hard work has gone down the drain in the space of 7 days. I think there needs to be a proper inquiry, and Superintendent Mark Runacres needs to go

The Police officers responsible for violent conduct should be sacked and prosecuted for assault. Some serving officers are a danger to the public. They should not have been recruited in the first place. Senior Police at the A&S are well aware of this”.  [Reply ends] 

Cleo Lake – Candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner, led calls for an independent inquiry into Police conduct. Via social media she said: ”I advocate the need for an urgent meeting & dialogue between Police and protestors to find a way forward if possible, in addition to the independent inquiry into the latest Bristol Protest. We must absolutely condemn the level of unnecessary Police violence witnessed in our city. We must have policing by consent. To all those peaceful protesters battered, I’m sorry this has happened to you. It is not, and will never be ok”. A link to Cleo Lake and Sandy Hore-Ruthven’s official statement is below. 

Bristol Lib Dems defended the right to peaceful protest, and called for an inquiry into how the policing was handled. Their statement reads: ”We have seen violence from a minority of protestors. However, the response by Police officers was disproportionate and excessive, which is also unacceptable”. This is an excerpt. Link to full statement below.  

A group of 16 Labour council candidates published an open letter saying: ”We are deeply concerned about the videos circulating on social media which appear to show police using excessive force against protestors. Of particular concern are the reports of multiple journalists being intimidated and in some cases assaulted by the police. We condemn all violence. We absolutely condemn uses of excessive force. These incidents need to be fully, independently investigated and those responsible held to account”. This is an excerpt. Link to full statement below. 

Bristol Women’s Voice have added their name to calls for an independent inquiry, saying in a statement: ”BWV are deeply concerned by the images of violence at the protests over the last week and horrified by the experiences of aggression we have heard about from women who have contacted us directly. 

We condemn all violence – this is never the way – and we support the call for an independent inquiry into police behaviour”.   

Discrimination and prejudice experienced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities has been called ‘the last acceptable form of racism’. Possibly the most sinister part of the ‘Police Crackdown Bill’ empowers the Police to confiscate GRT homes at the mere suspicion of future wrong doing. If GRT families are suddenly made homeless, the state has a legal obligation to remove their children and place them into care.  People who remember ‘Dale Farm’ know it is not simply a case of buying some land and setting up camp. England has some of the strictest planning laws in the world. With GRT people unlikely to satisfy Local Authority criteria to get a Council house – they could be in for a long wait for housing and the return of their children.

 

Links… 

Cleo Lake and Sandy Hore-Ruthven’s official statement:  

Sandy Hore-Ruthven’s official statement:  

Bristol Lib Dems official statement:  

Labour council candidates open letter:  

REES BOARDS THE COLSTON BANDWAGON …

… After years of kicking the can down the road

Colston docks

Since Colston came off his pedestal and went for a swim on June 7th social media, TV and the press have been dominated by politicians, journalists and so-called ‘community spokespeople’ gushing with praise for the statue coming down.

The Mayor’s Office even banged on in a press statement that the Reverend Rees had an audience of 10 million around the world, from Bangladesh to Tokyo after Colston’s ‘burial at sea’. However, while seizing this new opportunity for pontificating, Rees conveniently failed to give a toss about the people who had put him on the world stage. That was the 17 or so demonstrators who had been identified under Home Secretary, Priti Patel’s orders to “get these people” – the statue topplers.

So as Rees was boring the masses in Bangladesh, Avon & Somerset Police were being forced to line up charges of criminal damage that could put the protestors away for up to 10 years. And what did Rees do? Intervene at the Council for the good of the city and agree not to press charges, allowing the cops to give two fingers to Patel?  Like fuck he did … Far better to bathe in the glare of global publicity and forget about those who put him there.

Campaigners who have fought for many years for the Colston statue to be removed and to get a permanent memorial to the victims of slavery in the City have been astounded by the two-faced hypocrisy of these turncoats. Rees told Points West:

“When I first came in, myself and a number of black people in the creative sector said that the best thing to do is to keep that [Colston] debate away from me.”

So Mr Civil Rights’s major contribution to the struggle to get the Merchant Venturers pet slave trader off our streets and schools was not just to do nothing but to actively discourage others from getting involved.

When calls came to change the name of the Colston Hall in 2017 Rees was silent, refusing to make his position clear until he was caught like a rabbit in the headlights at the end of a TV programme. Martin Luther King, who Rees idolises, must be turning in his grave.

In 2019 after the Merchant Venturers had spent months sanitising the wording on a plaque for the statue that was meant to correct the history of Colston, Rees only intervened to avoid becoming a laughing stock. Finally using some of his executive power to block the Venturer’s sanitised plaque before heading to the hills faster than Dominic Cummings in a top of the range Land Rover, leaving the project in limbo for over a year.

Welsh-Back-Association-and-Bristol-Radical-History-Group-have-a-plan-for-an-Abolition-Shed-empty-dock-buildings-on
Bullies? Abolition Shed campaigners

Meanwhile Rees’s second in command Asher Craig’s hardly covered herself in glory in dealing with persistent calls by campaigners for a permanent memorial to remember the victims of the trans-atlantic slave trade. Bristol lags far behind other ports like Liverpool and Nantes in France that were involved in the ‘vile trade’ and have made major efforts to both memorialise the victims and tell the history – warts and all.

One historian from Bristol University stated in a meeting with Asher Craig in March 2019 “that Bristol’s reputation abroad, when referring to the city’s response to its slaving past, was very bad”. He also said that Bristol shouldn’t limit its ambitions regarding a slavery museum, “the city should think big and be better than Liverpool”.  

Bristol City Council have missed opportunities to right this embarrassing wrong many times. In 1996 around the Festival of the Sea, in 1999 when the Respectable Trade exhibition was launched,  in 2007 with the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade and again in 2015 when the Colston protests began.

In 2017 campaigners from three groups and local residents proposed the Abolition Shed project, which wanted to convert two council-owned warehouses on Welsh Back into a memorial for the victims of the African slave-trade with a visitor centre to tell the history. When they approached Asher Craig to get support from Bristol City Council she basically told them to clear off and get some private funding.

Despite this slap in the face campaigners continued the fight to halt the council’s proposed development of the warehouses into more restaurants and bars and to finally do something. This persistence and enthusiasm by unpaid Bristolians who gave a fuck about the memorial, the history and the city’s reputation was clearly starting to annoy Rees and Craig.

Pizza Express May18_38-1920x900
That Rees/Craig proposed slave trade memorial

In August 2019 Marvin angrily demanded to know “who the campaigners were” and in response to their proposals cited a record in office of being amazing, without, of course, any concrete commitment to a memorial and museum. Asher was even more furious claiming“the City was now taking this seriously” and accusing the campaigners of being “bullies”. One local historian from the Counter-Colston group commented:

“Despite the fact that it is just not true, for Asher to characterise people as ‘bullies’ who have, without ‘funding’ and political power given lots of time and energy over several years to try to get something done after decades of failure, is disgraceful.”

Needless to say the Abolition Shed project was strangled at birth by Rees, Craig and the Council as they voted to turn the warehouses into pizza restaurants whilst wasting a million quid on moving a barge to appease the developers. Another missed opportunity in Bristol’s tradition of failure.

Asher’s only response to persistent demands for a memorial was to set up a ‘roundtable’, which descended into the usual talking shop while those who wanted to get a concrete commitment from the Council were seen as ‘troublemakers’.

It is also no surprise that Marvin’s response to Colston’s statue coming down was to propose a ‘history commission’. Looking into the “true history of the city”, which sounds like another opportunity for free-loading academics to fail to do anything.

So here we are, kicking the can down the road again….

STREET LIFE

Within days of the cops announcing in November that they had gained more funding to create jobs within STREETWISE, the council and cops’ joint anti-begging initiative for Broadmead, undercover cops had taken to the streets.

One service user told a voluntary support group that two undercover plain clothes officers approached him and asked him to leave Broadmead IMMEDIATELY and said that if by the time they were back out in uniform he was still in the centre he could get ARRESTED. He was also told they want to try to stop voluntary outreach groups supporting the homeless.

Happy New Year!

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: A LETTER TO THE COPS

A copy of email sent to Avon And Somerset Police HQ and the PCC yesterday:

FORMAL NOTICE OF LEGAL STATUS OCCUPATION OF 44 RICHMOND TERRACE. AVONMOUTH. BS11 9EW.

The current occupants of the above premises owned by Bristol City Council have reason to believe that Bristol City Council are attempting to use the police to break up a legitimate Political Protest which is a Civil Court Matter, and as such we demand that Bristol City Council follow such procedures as allowed for by Civil Court Rules & Procedures.

Section 144 LASPO: THIS IS A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING PROTEST OCCUPATION, SECTION 144 LASPO does NOT apply

Although this is a “residential building” within the meaning of section 144, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 this is a POLITICAL occupation not a RESIDENTIAL occupation which is being applied according the this legal precedence –

(Hampshire Waste Services v Persons Unknown [2003] EWHC 1738 (Ch); [2003] PLSCS 217, University of Sussex v Person Unknown [2013] PLSCS 84)

The provisions of section 144 are therefore NOT APPLICABLE to this building or to our occupation of it.

Part II, Criminal Law Act 1977 (As amended by Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994) DOES APPLY.

We, the occupants, therefore request that the Avon and Somerset Police Constabulary, and its officers, uphold and respect the legal rights of the occupants of 44 Richmond Terrace, Avonmouth, given that this is a Civil Court matter and there is no criminal intent in respect of the occupiers and never has been.

In good faith we offer to meet with the senior police officer for the area of Avonmouth and Shirehampton should any further dialogue be required.

CUT THE POLICE

Things have got so bad even the OLD BILL are having to face cuts to services, just like the rest of us. Senior coppers have been on my radio bemoaning the fact that the days of the “BOBBY ON THE BEAT” are over (I’m feeling a bit safer already).

Don’t fret too much though. There will always be enough of them to kick your head in if you have the audacity to COMPLAIN about the system we are living under.

Just try demonstrating against poverty, the dismantling of our health service or bombing some corner of the world and loads of Old Bill will turn up, armed to the teeth ready to do you some real damage. All on fucking OVERTIME of course.

Not even Thatcher cut the thin blue line. Politicians need someone to defend their right to take the piss. However, the Old Bill have come up with a CUNNING PLAN to try to cover their budget cuts and it involves you.

One young man contacted the Bristolian about a fine. He was caught parking where he was not supposed to. He put his hands up – to save getting tasered – and accepted an on-the-spot fine. The copper assured him it would only be £100, roughly a month’s child benefit.

A few days later he got a bill for £400. This amounted to the original fine, £200 court costs and £100 ‘VICTIM SURCHARGE’. So yellow fucking lines are victims now are they?

Since he had not been anywhere near a COURT and had accepted his guilt, he did the rational thing and contacted the Avon and Somerset Police to explain their mistake. Only to be told they were sending the bailiffs around.

He explained that he lived with his Mum and Dad so then they demanded his car! They couldn’t have that either. It was on finance and therefore still owned by the garage.

Once the Old Bill had finished trying to mug the distraught teenager, they admitted that he had the RIGHT TO APPEAL. This is ongoing.

Avid readers of The Bristolian will remember that in some parts of Bristol – the poor parts basically – VICTIMS have to investigate their own burglaries and criminal damage. Plod will arrive, give you a crime number and blithely tell you to keep your eyes peeled and let them know if you find out anything.

They’re obviously far too busy seizing people’s property to pay for fines for misdemeanours to worry about burglary. Just try pleading not guilty these days, and see how much that will cost you. But that’s another story.

Have you been a victim of this type of state mugging? Drop us a line on one of the contact addresses and we will deal with it in confidence.

TOP COP STITCHED-UP?

garagn

News that Avon & Somerset’s top cop Nick Gargan was found guilty of EIGHT minor charges of misconduct and was furnished with EIGHT final warning letters has got a bizarre coalition of Police Federation wankers, former chief constable wankers (yes, that’s you Colin port) and local politician wankers demanding his head on a plate.

A similar coalition led by fat twat Liberal Democrat, Gary Hopkins – notorious for his over-friendly relations with BROADBURY ROAD POLICE STATION – are  also behind attacks on Avon & Somerset’s Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens. They are blaming her for wasting £0.5m suspending Gargan on full pay for over a year while investigating his conduct.

Gutbucket is now promising a full investigation by his committee of old farts at the POLICE AND CRIME PANEL. He says they’re going to “scrutinise the Police and Crime commissioner” due to “serious concerns” especially around Gargan’s “recruitment and what happened prior to his suspension”.

Which makes you wonder if the useless fat bastard and his gang of dodgy old coppers have bothered to actually read the Misconduct Panel report into Gargan’s misdemeanours?

This report does agree that forwarding confidential work emails to one of your many squeezes – local BBC journalist LAURA JONES – and assisting various other attractive women with their applications for senior posts with Avon & Somerset Police is probably the height of stupidity for a public servant on a six-figure salary employed for their absolute integrity. It also concludes GARGAN’s conduct is worthy of disciplinary action.

However, it seems, the wider story concerning this fiasco is being buried amid huge amounts of bluster from an establishment gang of old white men committed to scoring political points against a female PCC and who want to maintain an old school cop culture of RACIST POLICING and ENDEMIC CORRUPTION  at Avon & Somerset. A culture Gargan had been committed to removing.

Indeed, if you read the Misconduct Panel report into Gargan, they don’t seem much bothered by his minor misdemeanours and they don’t identify anything Mountstevens has done wrong at all.

In May 2014 Mountstevens received allegations regarding Gargan’s conduct around women from TWO WHISTLEBLOWERS. Mountstevens suspended Gargan and then passed the case to the IPCC to investigate, as she’s legally required to do.

The report makes clear that responsibility for most decisions regarding Gargan then passed to Avon & Somerset’s IPCC commissioner, JAN WILLIAMS. An inexperienced and incompetent health service manager who had already fucked up and delayed an IPCC investigation into the death of BIJAN EBRAHIMI.

Ebrahimi was the Iranian asylum seeker BEATEN AND THEN BURNED TO DEATH in a horrific attack in 2013 in Broomhill under the noses of coppers from BROADBURY ROAD POLICE STATION. An episode that resulted in the suspension of TWELVE police staff and the prosecution of THREE under Gargan’s leadership.

The EBRAHIMI INVESTIGATION was crucial to Gargan and his efforts to modernise the Avon & Somerset Constabulary and sweep away what we can politely and lawfully refer to as his force’s “old fashioned practices”. In this context, the report by Gargan’s Misconduct Panel is extremely enlightening as it spends far more time discussing the conduct of the IPCC than Gargan’s minor transgressions.

It was Williams at the IPCC who, having discovered within two months that the allegations regarding sexual harassment against Gargan were baseless, embarked on a FISHING EXPEDITION of his iPhone. It was this investigation that formed the slim basis of the disciplinary action eventually taken against Gargan.

It was Williams at the IPCC who WITHHELD from Mountstevens’ office for months the fact she had obtained no admissible evidence from any female witnesses in support of the original hearsay harassment allegations against Gargan.

It was Williams at the IPCC that MISLED Mountstevens throughout the summer of 2014, in order to keep Gargan suspended, that there was a likelihood of a criminal prosecution being brought against him under the Data Protection Act.

It was Williams at the IPCC who consistently REFUSED to lift Gargan’s suspension and therefore used our council tax to pay him to sit at home.

It was Williams at the IPCC who continually FRUSTRATED disclosure of evidence to Gargan between 2 February and 27 May 2015 and therefore DELAYED Gargan’s Misconduct Panel hearing by months.

It was Williams at the IPCC who FAILED “to comply with its disclosure obligations all the way to the Misconduct Panel’s door”.

It was Williams at the IPCC who under cross-examination COULDN’T EXPLAIN what the term “evidence” means.

It was Williams at the IPCC, according to the Misconduct Panel, whose understanding of the concept of ‘relevance’ was, until 24 April 2015, ‘CONCERNING’.

It was Williams at the IPCC who was described as “ALMOST INCOHERENT” when giving evidence to the independent Misconduct Panel.

It was Williams at the IPCC whose submissions were described by the Misconduct Panel as “A LITTLE UNREAL”.

It was Williams at the IPCC who supplied a spreadsheet redacted “BEYOND COMPREHENSION” to the Misconduct Panel.

It was Williams at the IPCC who continually promised Mountstevens a ‘HARD HITTING’ report into Gargan despite knowing full well that her investigation had unearthed NO ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE in relation to the original harassment allegations while the data protection breaches she uncovered did not merit criminal proceedings.

By the end of June 2014, when the investigation into the original harassment allegations had unearthed no admissible evidence, Mountstevens’ CEO Jonathan Smith had started action to prepare for Gargan’s return to work.

This was PERSONALLY STOPPED by Williams at the IPCC who had by then embarked on her iPhone fishing expedition against Gargan. The very same man who had complained about her conduct of another IPCC investigation into the death of – who else? – BIJAN EBRAHIMI!

And it was Williams who then had to have the simple concept of “CONFLICT OF INTEREST” explained to her by a lawyer when she gave evidence to the Misconduct panel.

Meanwhile, the Misconduct Panel’s report contains NO CRITICISM of Sue Mountstevens and treats the soppy list of minor allegations against Gargan as lightly as they deserve.

The whole investigation into Gargan has, therefore, more than a passing resemblance to a STITCH-UP by VESTED INTERESTS and OLD SCHOOL COPPERS desperate to get rid of a modernising influence on our police.

The IPCC’s got a lot of questions to answer here and JAN WILLIAMS’ position seems untenable. Does anyone believe this useless, dodgy bureaucrat is capable of independent oversight of our dubious police force after this?

And will Gary Hopkins’ and his political Police and Crime Panel be doing an investigation into the conduct of their IPCC Commissioner rather than pursuing a pointless and very public witch hunt for their own DIRTY POLITICAL REASONS against Mountstevens?

Don’t hold your breath.