Activism

Legal update – no 3

Please take the time to read this update.

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Post climate camp - legal update 2

Reclaiming seized property

Legal services at Kent Police have publicised a strategy for property collection (see below) which involves four days for collection in person over this weekend and they are thinking of repeating this a few more times.

However, since then there has been some contact between the Climate Camp legal support team and Kent Police legal services and in principle the following has been agreed:

- All property will be retained for 12 months.

- The property seized from the site under the warrant can be collected and liaison is now taking place about when and what size lorry will be needed. Current thoughts are that the property will be taken to the next national gathering and that people can reclaim things through their neighbourhoods attending the meeting and the rest will be retained by the Climate Camp. Please could someone from site contact legal@climatecamp.org.uk to liaise in relation to this.

- Individuals can correspond by email with legal services legal.services@climatecamp.org.uk. and send their scanned receipt, or if they have no receipt a description of the items and where and when they were seized. They have now agreed, if the item is small it will (at their discretion) be sent through the post to an address they provide, provided a disclaimer is signed. The two legal teams are working on the wording of the disclaimer and we will let you know when it is in place. Neighbourhoods may want to think about whether they can offer local addresses for collection so people do not have to use their home addresses and how that might work.

- Bigger items (no idea what counts as big or small) could be collected when the stuff seized under the warrant is collected provided there is an appropriate disclaimer in place. On a case by case basis other reasonably practicable solutions will be considered, they are not keen on delivery to local police stations but it is not absolutely ruled out.

- Their primary concern is to protect Kent Police from claims for property that does not reach the claimant.

HQ wrote:

"There is an opportunity to collect property seized during Climate Camp 2008.

Gravesend Police Station, 133 Windmill Street, Gravesend, Kent, DA12 DB,

Friday 22nd August 2008

Saturday 23rd August 2008

Sunday 24th August 2008

Tuesday 26th August 2008

Wednesday 27th August 2008

Opening times on all days will be 1000 to 1800

To reclaim your property, you will need to bring photo identification and the receipt the police gave you for your property during Climate Camp

If you are unable to collect your property, you may nominate a person to collect it on your behalf. They must bring written, signed authorisation from you, their photo identification, and the police receipt for your property.

All property will be returned at the discretion of the officer or member of staff on duty at the station."

Contact details

The correct telephone number for Kent Legal Services is 01622 690690 and Julie Martin is now dealing with the property.

Call out

Arrests - this year we would quite like to monitor the outcome of arrests so please do let us know if you end up not being charged, or having the charges dropped, or if you do get convicted what the conviction is for and what the outcome in terms of a fine etc. If you have a court date coming up and need access to statements and potential witnesses please contact us directly orvia your solicitor on legal@climatecamp.org.uk.

The Climate Camp legal team has a pink search form for 19:47 7 August 2008,
male, Point 1 Dux Court Road (main car park?) where during a section 60 search a bike chain was seized - a seal number was written on the receipt.
If this might be yours please contact legal@climatecamp.org.uk.

A man in a black fleece and blue rucksack was manhandled by an inspector at the Golf Club search point on Saturday 9th August at 10.35am and is looking for the legal observer who he spoke to afterwards in case they made some notes. If you might be able to help or saw what happened please contact legal@climatecamp.org.uk.

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Over the course of the Camp it has been brought to our attention that many items have gone missing, while other items have been found and not yet returned to their owners.

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Legal Support Team post-camp briefing – no 1

Urgent call out

For legally aided people (low income – approx less than £14,000 with low savings) who might be willing to be parties to a judicial review case on the searches and who:

suffered an excessive number of searches under section 1 and section 60
OR
suffered a detriment because of the searches (either deterring them so they did not even attend or visit again, or so that their limited time at the camp was reduced significantly by the search time – this might point to local people maybe or day visitors – maybe the Networking group can follow this up?).

For people threatened with section 50 (antisocial behaviour) to obtain their name and address.

For people threatened with arrest for suspected immigration offences to obtain their name and address.

For people threatened with arrest for having stolen a mobile phone or otherwise had their mobile phone tampered with in terms of scrolling through personal details or having their IME number checked.

For witnesses to an injury caused by a police truncheon to a women’s hand/wrist at K5 in the afternoon of Monday 4th August. One potential witness’ name is Laura. Also related images and film.

Please contact legal@climatecamp.org.uk

There is likely to be more calls out for information and potential witnesses and litigants, so please look out for these (especially over the next few months or so as those arrested go to court).

Return of property seized from individual searches or on arrest

Some people have search forms or receipts detailing property taken, some have none. Some search forms or receipts have a name and address on them and some a description of the person, some have nothing.

In some instances, the Legal Support Team has somehow ended up with a search form with property items detailed on them. We will try to contact people to return them where we have contact details but please do not rely on this and contact us at legal@climatecamp.org.uk.

Write with a copy of any form you have to Legal Services Department (contact details below). If you have no written evidence of the items being taken, you will need to give as much detail as possible about when and where items were taken and by whom and a full description of the item.

It may be worth asking your property to be returned to you by post. Alternatively, there has been some indication that items may be sent through the internal police post to a local police station for collection.

In principle, if you do not wish to disclose your name and address that should be facilitated in some way. Using an email address to correspond may be the best way to proceed and personal collection or delivery to a non-home address for collection may be the most sensible approach.

We have received assurances that no items will be destroyed in the short term.

If you do not want to reclaim an item you could write to say that you wish it to be available to be claimed by the Climate Camp collectively and copy site@climatecamp.org.uk into the correspondence.

The Climate Camp legal team are considering whether there is any appropriate legal claim that could be made in relation to the seizure policy. Whether or not there is, you might as an individual make a specific complaint (see details below) about the seizure of your property separate to a request for its return.

Items seized under the warrant

From the list produced, we do not believe the items were taken in a form it will be easy for the police, or us, to link individuals to property. We are still working out how to proceed with this, probably site@climatecamp.org.uk will reclaim it and we will proceed from there. Contact us if you lost something that is important to you that you receive back on legal@climatecamp.org.uk.

Damaged or lost property - like bike locks etc

Write to make a claim to Legal Services Department. Contact details below.

In principle there is agreement to facilitate a process that does not involve the disclosure of your name and address if you do not wish to disclose them. Perhaps a bearer cheque to be collected from a local police station on production of an email from them, would work.

Beyond that you may need to pursue a county court claim – this is possible to do yourself but you do need try writing first. Details of how to do this are available on http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/claims/index.htm

You might as an individual make a specific complaint (see details below) about how your property was treated separate to a request for compensation.

Complaints

Full details of how to make an individual complaint about police conduct to http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/index/complaints.htm. In general there is a distinction about complaining about the overall management and conduct of the policing, and about the behaviour of individual officers when it is essential to be specific about the officers involved if at all possible. If you need to refer back to details you have given in a short account form / witness statement completed at the Camp, please contact legal@climatecamp.org.uk.

Arrests and injuries
A key priority for the legal team is to support those facing charges by forwarding to them or their lawyers relevant short account forms / witness statements and putting calls out for additional witnesses and relevant pictures and films. Similarly, legal team will seek to the same for claims for wrongful arrest or personal injuries. (It may be worth considering Bhatt Murphy or Fisher Meredith for claims against the police.) It is helpful for us to hear the outcomes of these cases. Legal can be contacted at legal@climatecamp.org.uk.

Other news
Some members of the legal support team are working with Bindmans to pursue a judicial review claim regarding the use of section 1 and section 60 (see above call for witnesses).

Consideration is being given to challenging the treatment of the seizure policy and the treatment of legal observers but that may be more difficult using a legal route.

The legal support team will support political and media based lobbying regarding the policing of the Climate Camp and is working to produce a summary report on the policing with illustrative examples.

It will help to keep the legal support team up to date with successes or problems with retrieving your property, obtaining compensation or making a complaint so we can share with others what is working and what is not.

Contact details

Kent Police HQ - Legal Services: Head of Legal Services, Kent Police HQ, Sutton Road, Maidstone, ME15 9ZZ, legal.services@kent.pnn.police.uk, telephone 01622 680690 (main switchboard).

Climate Camp 2008 – Legal Support Team: legal@climatecamp.org.uk

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