Police Farce at Poor Doors: The protest outside the ‘rich’ door of One Commercial St on Thursday 26th February 2015 was just another in the regular series of weekly protests by Class War against the separate entrances to the building – one into a spacious foyer with a reception desk, comfortable seating, flowers and works of art on the walls for those in the privately owned flats and the other a long empty corridor from a door down a side alley for those in social housing.
But a larger contingent of police had turned up than usual and they had come determined to show they were in charge.
As soon as Class War arrived and unrolled their banners a police officer, Sergeant C, came to tell them that the ‘Party Leaders’ banner was offensive and they must remove it.
They were told that nobody had objected to it and so according to the law it was not an offence to display it, and it remained on display. Sergeant C and a woman police officer then began stopping people passing by and entering and leaving through the rich door and trying to get them to say it was offensive.
It seemed to me unacceptable behaviour for police to try and manufacture an offence in this way, and I was pleased when person after person responded with either ‘No’ or ‘Not particularly’ or words to that effect or said they found it amusing rather than offensive. But eventually after around ten minutes of asking people they found three young men going into the rich door who were willing to be prompted to agree that they found it offensive, and came back to the protesters.
Triumphant, Sergeant C then returned to those holding the banner and told them that unless they put the banner away they would be arrested. The protesters rolled it up and continued the protest.
The police should have known better. In 2010 police had raided the home of a photographer a mile of so away for displaying the posters the banner was based on in the windows of his house, forcing him to take them down. He did, then replaced them with the word ‘wanker’ replaced by ‘onanist’. Later the police apologised for their action, upholding the right to to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act and paid compensation for the raid on his home.
Sergeant C also warned Ian Bone he would be arrested if he continued to use offensive language, in particular the ‘f’ word. As Bone told him, this this was now commonly heard in almost all situations, but perhaps his contributions became just a little more muted.
But Martin Wright took up the challenge, giving a spirited discourse on the words he found offensive such as ‘poverty’ and ‘war’ and using various terms related to sex and bodily functions which were not. The police took no action.
Class War had brought out their posters with the message ‘YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF ALDGATE’ and they invited the police to leave, offering them safe conduct out of the PRA. The police failed to take up the offer.
As the protest was coming to an end there was “a moment of pure farce after an orange flare had been set off, when Sergeant C and another officer tried to put it out in a puddle.
Unsurprisingly this had little effect. It was burning out fairly harmlessly in the puddle on the pavement, the red smoke mainly blowing along the pavement parallel to the road when the sergeant decided to pick it up and carry it to a bin at the side of the traffic lights.
Red smoke continued to pour out of the bin, now being blown into the traffic, and some of the rubbish in the bin appeared to catch fire, though fortunately it went out.”
One of the protesters then mime the police action in dealing with the flare in the puddle and the others were soon in stitches, along with the security man; some of the police were unable to hide their amusement, trying desperately hard not to laugh.
It was time to go home, and I left with the impression that Class War had rather decisively beaten the police on this occasion.
But clearly the local police had an obsession with the ‘Political Leaders’ banner – and a few months later – as I wrote here in Police nick Class War banner – seized it at another Poor Doors protest, arresting one of those holding it. They took the banner back to the police station and then ‘lost‘ it.
More pictures on My London Diary at People’s Republic Of Aldgate Free Speech Fight.
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