Student Demonstrator Goes Down
Edward Woollard, who pled guilty to violent disorder for throwing a fire extinguisher off the Tory Party HQ during anti-cuts demonstrations, has been sent down for 2 years and 8 months.
This begs an answer to the question: what exactly is the merit of pleading Guilty in the first place? With the state desperate to deter others from following the example set by the students, it seems the gloves are well and truly off. When an 18-year-old of good character pleads guilty after handing himself in, fully co-operating with the Police investigation and expressing remorse for his actions gets 32 months - an unusually harsh sentence for the circumstances - the Government has made it's position clear. This is entirely political - and if they want a political trial, they should get one.
In the following weeks and months, many school and university students will be waiting with baited breath, not for the results of exams but for the verdict of police investigations into their actions on the Student demonstrations at the end of last year. Whilst, for some of them, this will result in their being charged with offences at the heavier end of the Public Order Act - most likely the notoriously vague and drachonian 'Violent Disorder' - this does not necessarily mean they are guilty. Even if the Police do have crystal clear footage of them, for instance, throwing missiles.
After all, we have the legal right to defend ourselves - and subsequently, what little freedoms we have - from attack by others. This includes the Police and this has been successfully argued in many courtrooms in the past, when demonstrators have been attacked in Police operations of dubious legality and found themselves nicked for Violent Disorder.
Any good defence lawyer or defendants campaign should have the Met on the stand to account for their own excessive use of violence. Exactly how will they justify the baton charges, the kettling and containment, the horse charges, the mass arrests, the harassment, the planting of out-of-service Police vans, the surveillance and the sheer brutality that led to one demonstrator ending up in hospital with life-threatening head injuries?
This is something for those who are anxiously awaiting charge to consider when reflecting on the events of the day and how this ended up in their arrest:
It's time we put Public Order Policing on trial.
IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR LEGAL SITUATION:
* Contact LDMG or GREEN & BLACK CROSS.
* If you live in London, there may soon be a legal drop-in/defendent campaign session up and running from the OffMarket Social Centre in Hackney. Watch this space for more details.
* GET A GOOD LAWYER - We can reccommend Hodge, Jones & Allen (London) or Kelly's (Brighton) in particular.
* DON'T PANIC - Remember, even when attending a bail-to-return date with the Police, always say "No Comment". Wait until you have all the evidence from the CPS in front of you and scrutinise it thoroughly with people you trust (obviously NOWHERE NEAR a Police Station!). Although your lawyer will probably be trying their best, they have a lot of work to do and can't always give your case the attention it needs. Help them do their job by meticulously going through everything and making notes on any discrepancies or issues. Even if it looks like they have you bang to rights, there may be other technicalities or legal defences for your actions on the day, so don't be too disheartened.
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January 12th, 2011 - 19:35
Apart from proving the “one law for us, one for them” the Woollard verdict shows that cooperating with the enemy gets one nowhere. If he had gone abroad and claimed political asylum Woollard would have had an excellent chance. “When just one man says No, I won’t Rome starts to fear”.
January 12th, 2011 - 22:24
Let’s not discuss the merits of pleading guilty – he could hardly have pleaded not guilty, could he? – but let’s hope that the sentence will make other idiots think twice before engaging in mindless acts of gross stupidity that endanger the lives of others, which in Mr Wollard’s case included the ones of peacefully demonstrating students
And having said that, and knowing how the prison system works in this country, he will most likely be out in nine months or so, after having been transferred to an open prison, because he is not “a menace to society” (any longer).
Time for a reality check, I think.
January 12th, 2011 - 23:40
So where are the rest of the students? Aren’t they organized? They must do something to support Edward. After all, what is student power for?
January 13th, 2011 - 00:56
Do you have a picture of “Officer A”? It would be great to see what she looks like.
For Robert Zimmerman: do you have any comment to make on the mindless act of gross stupidity that was hitting Alfie Meadows over the head with a baton? Or the police trying to prevent him getting treatment at the hospital? What do you think about the police kettling peaceful protestors for hours on end? Or horses charging at protestors? Or crushing them on Westminster Bridge from both sides? I take it you couldn’t care less about any of that?
January 13th, 2011 - 06:42
As time and time again it is shown, there is one law for the Police and one law for the public. In my eyes that makes this country lawless.
Only consider your actions within the framework of this lawless society. Until such time as the law is equally applied and the disgraced IPCC is removed, there will be no justice.
January 13th, 2011 - 06:57
The police and cps prey on the naive about how they operate, they can be very convincing, one cop makes you feel bad another gives you hope. In the end though they like a result even if its not at all clear what happened especially in political situations, the state needs its pound of flesh and the CPS uses all kind of devices as well you have to be aware of like trying to get you to break your bail by making you wait, and the crown court judge will be a very conservative one, I think this is what happened here. their as devious as peter mandelson. also it should be noted duty solistors are often in league with the CPS so no comment should always be the answer even before them.
This kind of advice should be at the beck and call of all demonstrators. The LDMG steward was not of much help when i saw a demonstrator pushed to the ground just like ian thomlison many years ago i remember because we needed witness’s also duty solisitors dont look for other footage like from the media to counter the polices arguments, so if you see a camera in the area were you get arrested ask the camera person to take a picture and contact details.
January 13th, 2011 - 10:14
I quite agree with Random Fred. Blindly agreeing with authority is dangerous. Change does not happen by sitting on ones comfortable behind! There are many yes men in this world. What we need now is spirited people standing up for justice and truth in this world of spin and illusions. How many more times will the will of the people be ignored. 2 Million people marched in an attempt to stop the war in Iraq, common sense and the intuition of the people new this War was wrong. These cuts are clearly ideological. It is a matter of priorities. The future education of our children and social mobility is apparently not important. More important apparently is endless War, Trident Nuclear missiles and propping up the richest in our society in the biggest move of public money to private hands ever witnessed.
January 13th, 2011 - 11:39
Woollard could refuse to recognise the court. “Guilty” means he did something wrong whereas he was justified by his actions. Harmony of pen and sword. As for Plod trolls here, ignore ‘em. Wear the uniform pay the price. New Scotland Yard delenda est.
January 13th, 2011 - 11:45
Who hit Alfie Meadows over the head with a baton? As far as I know there’s no video – I mean, at a student protest, and nobody had an iPhone out, amazing. Alfie himself still hasn’t spoken on the subject as far as I’m aware. To the best of my knowledge, all we’ve got to go on is what his mother said while Alfie himself was still out cold – and how would she know anyway?
With the number of bricks, snooker balls, sticks, etc. being thrown around at the front line of the riot, there are plenty of ways a fellow could get his head split open without police assistance. There’s certainly room for doubt on this matter. Strange, then, that we’ve heard nothing about the whole incident ever since: is Mr Meadows still unconscious? I’d have thought he’d have spoken out about his experience by now if not.
January 13th, 2011 - 20:03
He was an idiot, but no was harmed in the end, so a harsh sentence. Meanwhile the copper who attacked Ian Tomlinson from behind who later dies, gets off scott free. British Justice in all its glory.
January 14th, 2011 - 09:30
i think you will find that the officer who hit Tomlinson will be hung out to dry and loose his job,quite rightly so.However lets not forget this idiot threw this off the top of a building , it could have hit you or any other demonstrator as well as the old bill.The headline here is quite frankly embarrassing to your cause, trying to justify his actions.And whilst im on a role, come on Alfie speak out, i also have heard it was another demonstrator that hit you
January 18th, 2011 - 00:45
Protest top tips. Rucksack, sandwiches , soup ( non vegan!) toilet paper, sense of humour, sensible shoes, picture of Ron broxteds mother firing ping pong balls from her fannymandingo, head cover so not to get hit by fellow protesters, wheelchair with rockets to hover over fellow protesters and not get in the way of said protesters! New chants that are catchy and not repetitive repetitive ,mobile BBC reporter fan club, thick socks, amazing facts to astound plod and above all the decency not to go on and on and on and on about the same blah over and over again!
January 27th, 2011 - 07:39
How exactly was Wollard defending himself when he was eight stories up, away from the police? The police were outnumbered that day, by about 500 to one. And if that extinguisher had hit and killed a student below? Would you have trotted out all the usual nonsense about his right to use violence then? Or would you have put your tin-foil hats on and claimed he was a police agent etc He missed killing a student by about 8 inches; still proud of him? He didn’t hand himself in either, his mother forced him down to the police station about a week later when the ‘heat’ was too much from the newspaper photos, so don’t make out like that fact should be any mitigation. And the sentence was pathetic too; anywhere else he would have got 5 years.
February 9th, 2011 - 18:47
So BILL WITHERS Simon Harwood will loose his job, whoopee
the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, backed a prosecution for manslaughter.
Pc Harwood left the Metropolitan Police a decade ago amid controversy over an alleged off-duty road rage incident, then got a job with Surrey Police, where he was accused of using excessive force.
He could now face disciplinary charges over the death of Mr Tomlinson, and could also be the subject of an internal investigation by the Met into how he was allowed to rejoin the force despite having an unresolved disciplinary matter on his record.
The married 43 year-old had been due to face a misconduct hearing over the alleged road rage incident, understood to have happened in the late 1990s, but instead retired on medical grounds.
I hope he loose his job if he was not a copper he would be in prison, where he belongs, and I would feel safer, the guy is a menace.
May 23rd, 2011 - 20:48
To woolward defence tean ,in court a statement was read out during sentencing in which a officer stated she was hit by the object trown by woolward,as this has been proved untrue by the video evidence,and the judge must have considered this part of the evidence used in sentancing,can he not now appeal on the lenght of his sentance?