Triumph for Birmingham student union officer Sean Farmelo found not guilty of assault charges

An eight month case for assault has ended in triumph for University of Birmingham student union officer Sean Farmelo; he had been accused of being the main instigator of a violent attack on a university security officer during the ‘Protest Against the Protest Ban.’

The case against Farmelo collapsed in trial this week as it became embarrassingly clear that the prosecution had no evidence that any of this took place. At the trial it became apparent that an innocent man was being put through the tribulations of the court system for no reason. Sean was described by the judge as having “good character” and that his “volunteering work was a credit to him.”

The prosecution’s claims were disproved when the defence played footage of Farmelo during the entire incident filmed by a Green & Black legal observer which showed no such assault taking place. The prosecution case was also seriously weakened itself when a witness claimed Sean was wearing “black plimsolls” when he stamped on them, at which point the clothes Sean was wearing on the day seized by the police were produced and embarrassingly the Sean’s footwear turned out to be “green boots.” A further prosecution witness later admitted upon cross-examination to not have been “pushed” as was initially claimed but instead fell over themself by accident, and had been wearing high-heels on the day and not flat shoes.

The question now is why on such little (and contradictory) evidence from the beginning was Sean put through eight months of stress? It seems that vast amounts of protestors are now being arrested at protests by police desperate to convict those taking part in effective movements. However most of these tenuous cases are being defeated in court, but still at vast cost to the tax payer and human cost to the protestors.