More on Norman!

Yesterday I wrote about Norman Scarth and his arrest at Birkenhead, I have since heard from him and this is what he had to say.

Report on the events at Birkenhead on Tuesday 03 May 2011:
At 9.30am I walked into the entrance to Wirral Magistrates Court, intending to do no more than observe any case that interested me. At 9.35am, already handcuffed, I was thrust into a 2’6″ square cage in the back of a van in a Police Station yard. The engine was running, a Gestapo Zombie in the driving seat, but it didn’t move. Neither me nor the van moved for almost three hours, when six Gestapo turned up, the sergeant dragged me violently out of the van, threw me to the ground, told me I was being ‘de-arrested’ & could go. That is as much as I can tell you about Tuesday morning in Birkenhead. Information about events in court will have to come from elsewhere.
Now, all together – ” There’ll Always Be An England ”
Norman Scarth.

Now firstly let me apologise for any inconsistencies between the two versions, the news i had was ‘third hand’ but I do not see that the differences were large enough to quibble over as regards my conclusions…

Now I have to get to the ‘meat’ of the matter, from PACE…

2 Elements of Arrest under section 24 PACE
2.1 A lawful arrest requires two elements:
A person’s involvement or suspected involvement or attempted involvement in the
commission of a criminal offence;
AND
Reasonable grounds for believing that the person’s arrest is necessary.

and
1.2 The right to liberty is a key principle of the Human Rights Act 1998. The exercise of
the power of arrest represents an obvious and significant interference with that right.
1.3 The use of the power must be fully justified and officers exercising the power should
consider if the necessary objectives can be met by other, less intrusive means. Arrest
must never be used simply because it can be used. Absence of justification for
exercising the powers of arrest may lead to challenges should the case proceed to
court. When the power of arrest is exercised it is essential that it is exercised in a nondiscriminatory
and proportionate manner.

I have searched Pace for what I knew used to be there but cannot now find it, there used to be a requirement that an arrested person was brought to a police station as soon as practicable, Normans detention in a van for three hours does not fit that criteria, I wonder when it was done away with as it is only last year that I studied this and it was in force then…. More police state legislation?

However the above quotes taken directly from PACE should show that the police had no right to arrest Norman and detain him for three hours in a police van, what happened there seems to suggest to me that they were arbitrarily removing a persons freedom.

To my mind they were waiting there for ‘more’ trouble to kick off and then Norman would have been lumped in with any others arrested and processed along with them to give the police a better ‘case’.

The mere fact this has happened to Norman (at his age) should be ringing alarm bells to all of us, it is my belief that they exercised their ‘powers’ illegally, in that Norman was a known face from the previous Birkenhead farce and he was arrested simply because he was recognised as having been in attendance previously, Norman was not committing any CRIMINAL OFFENCE nor could he be considered to be about to do so the very suggestion that attending a court is a criminal offence is laughable (and very scary indeed). That is not sufficient criteria for an arrest, the police have committed criminal acts in this matter including FALSE ARREST, and ILLEGAL/UNLAWFUL DETENTION, as well as assault and battery.

Please folks carry a copy of pace with you at all times and insist that they (the police) adhere to their own guidelines and regulations. Arresting someone is a serious act and subsequent de-arrest does not make the initial arrest any more legal/lawful, these out of control thugs must be stopped from abusing their police powers, write to the Home Office, the Justice Department, The Prime Minister in fact to anyone that may just possibly see reason and return the laws/statutes to a place where we , once again, have some rights !