Court Report days 5-7
Sorry for the delay: everything goes by the lawyers and they are understandably having a break after their 12 (at least) hour days, so this is a bit late.
[The level of detail over the past few days has been way too much to compact into useful posts here, but extensive notes have been taken, and there’s a lot we can and will say following the conclusion of the trial about what the police decided to do on the day in relation to baton use, mounted units, the various containments of the day, including the kettling on Westminster Bridge at the end of the evening, how police communicated what they were doing to the crowd (or not), the protections in place for vulnerable people at the protest, and so on. But all that to follow. Thank you to all who have supported Alfie and the others in lots of different ways: it really does make things less isolating and surreal]
Just to keep people briefly up to date, so far we’ve heard from silver commander Johnson, who was questioned at length and in great detail on day five of the trial by Michael Mansfield about multiple aspects of the police tactics used on the day, on the planning of the event and on any recommendations that followed the event that were highlighted in the Facilitating Peaceful Protest report.
Mansfield suggested to Johnson that the operation he had overseen on the day of Dec 9th was deeply flawed and as a result had created a number of dangerous situations that had come very close to causing death. He asked Johnson whether, in hindsight, he would have done anything differently to which Johnson replied that there were many variables that he had been unaware of at the planning stage, but otherwise that he felt it had been a ‘sound tactical plan’. Mansfield noted that Johnson had not yet noted in the course of the trial that in an entry in the log books from 19.30 it stated that there was a 17-year old with serious head injuries believed to have been struck on the head with a police baton [Alfie was actually 20 at the time, this is the police estimate of his age]. The debrief in the log stated that the protester was ‘likely to die’. Mansfield asked if this debrief had ‘concerned’ Johnson at all, to which Johnson replied that he had taken action to investigate the report. Mansfield noted that a later note records that the casualty was on route to Charing Cross hospital in a ‘semi-conscious and life-threatening/life-changing’ situation with a subdural brain haemorrhage and skull fracture.
Some of the rest of this day was given over to a discussion of the locations and crowd sizes, where Mansfield questioned Johnson over the disparity between the numbers he had suggested and what had been recorded in the police log books.
Day six saw Mansfield continue his questioning of silver commander Johnson and there were lengthy questions regarding exact timings of containments and the length of time (and temperature – around -4 degrees) of the kettle on Westminster Bridge that evening. There was a discussion about an open gas main on Whitehall, and whether Johnson had put any precautions in place to prevent any dangers arising from it. Mansfield asked Johnson about the provisions in place for those in the major containment in Parliament Square put in at 15.23 who had been injured, were sick or otherwise vulnerable. Johnson replied that on the ground circumstances might have made it difficult for officers to let people out. Mansfield suggested to Johnson that the kettling on Westminster Bridge on the evening of Dec 9th had been a form of ‘collective punishment’ and that there were reports of pushing and fainting in the densely packed crowd noted in the police log books. The court saw footage from the front of the police cordon on Westminster Bridge in which protesters can be heard saying to police ‘you are going to kill people’, ‘think about what you’re doing’ and ‘stop pushing’. Mansfield compared the containment here to a ‘Hillsborough situation’, to which Johnson replied that there had been ‘more than enough space’ for people to move about. Mansfield questioned Johnson’s tactics once again, asking him if he understood the difference between ‘high-profile’ and ‘low-profile’ policing to which Johnson replied ‘I use proportionate policing’. Mansfield referred to Johnson’s handling of the G20 protest and the way ‘thing went wrong there’. Johnson said he didn’t accept things had gone wrong, to which Mansfield responded ‘somebody died there’. ‘They did, yes,’ replied Johnson.
On day six, as well as addressing further tactical issues, Mansfield returned to Alfie’s injury and the police response to it. Johnson reiterated that letting people out of the kettle was an individual officer’s decision (‘it depends on the mood of the person’), but that he would expect someone with a serious head injury to be let out. Further to Mansfield’s challenge that there had been no ‘sustained ferocious violence’ on the day, which would have justified the containment and other tactics used, prosecution opted to show aerial footage from Broad Sanctuary, which showed a large crowd held by a police cordon. Prosecution then read a police interview given by one of the defendants, noted the time of arrest of all five defendants and concluded their case.
Day seven saw two defendants take the stand, with the second to conclude on Tuesday when we are back in court [I’m not going to use their names, other than Alfie’s, unless I’ve gotten a confirmation from them. There’s also a lot of detail involved in these examinations and cross-examinations concerning timings and locations etc. which I’m also going to omit in the main]. The first defendant, Zak, stated that he had come to the protest with his mum and brother because he believed in the equal rights of everyone to attend university. He stated that the mood of the protest had been happy and excited, with people dancing, laughing and standing around in the early part of the afternoon. The defendant noted various instances where protesters had started to be removed from the crowd by officers in the early part of the afternoon, and how attempts to leave the protest in order to get a train (the defendant had a job interview early the next day a long way from London) had been thwarted.
As the containment wore on, and he had become separated from his mother and brother, the defendant became increasingly upset at the actions of the police, noting a conversation he had had with a ‘middle-aged’ woman whom he asked ‘has anybody been hurt?’ to which she replied ‘every five minutes’. The defendant stated that protesters had been asking police about their tactics but that they wouldn’t converse, apart from to say ‘get back, get back’ or ‘stay back’. The defendant said he felt compelled to protect people from police batons, and was wearing protective shin-pads on his arms after a friend had told him that police had used batons against peaceful protesters at the G20 protest in 2009. The defendant stated that he used these to block baton blows aimed at himself and other protesters as the situation ‘started to escalate’, and used his goalkeeper gloves to push batons down away from himself and others who, the defendant noted, became increasingly ‘shocked and disgusted’ at the way the police were using their batons against protesters. When barriers started to come over the crowd from the back, the defendant said that it had been ‘the most logical thing’ for the people at the front to hold them in front of them to stop the police further attacking protesters. The defendant stated that he had a ‘moral duty’ to defend the crowd and had not moved back because he had some protective clothing on him, whereas others did not. The defendant noted that police were jabbing batons through the fencing and around the sides. The defendant himself had been struck by a baton in his eye-socket, which was noted in a medical report taken at the police station the same night, along with other bruising on his body (this was shown to the court at the end of the defendant’s defence). The defendant had been arrested that night as he came off Westminster Bridge, where police had set up a narrow exit where people left one by one.
Lofthouse, prosecuting, put it to the defendant in cross-examination, that it had been possible to distance himself from the police to which the defendant stated that he had tried to leave but had been refused by officers. Lofthouse repeated this claim, to which the defendant gave the same answer. Lofthouse put it to the defendant that there had been numerous attacks on the police by protesters involving various “missiles”, including masonry. The defendant replied that he had only seen lightweight placard sticks and a flag come over which posed little danger to police wearing padding, helmets and armed with truncheons.
The court heard from a witness (unknown to the defendant) called by the defence who was called to describe her experiences of the day. She described how fences had been taken down in Parliament Square as the march came in to avoid people being crushed against them. The witness described how she had had her hair pulled out by an officer on the day and the court were shown footage of the witness with a clump of hair missing from one side and further footage of the witness on the day in question trying to cover up the patch by pushing her hair over, actions confirmed by the witness. The witness stated that the barriers that had come over the crowd to the front had to be pushed over to avoid crushing those beneath, something she had feared would happen. The court then heard the defendants medical reports and two character witness statements, both of which stated that the defendant is predisposed to help other people if he thinks they are in danger or likely to be hurt.
The second defendant then took the stand, and stated that he had gone on the march with a friend because he believed that everyone had the right to free education. He stated that the mood of the march had initially been ‘very jolly’ but that he and others had felt ‘trapped and disheartened’ when people realised that the police had put a containment in place. The defendant stated how cold he had been as he was only wearing a t-shirt and jumper, not expecting to be kettled.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
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