Courts defend right to protest
By Andrew Beckett
FINAL VICTORY FOR PEACE PROTESTERS AGAINST ARMS MANUFACTURERS
The attempt by arms manufacturers EDO MBM to restrict protest outside their
Brighton factory has ended in expensive failure. Their attempt to secure a
no-protest exclusion zone with an injunction under the
Protection from Harassment Act has ended in unconditional surrender after a
year-long High Court battle. The case is estimated to have cost the company
upwards of �1 million and this week US parent company EDO Corp announced 2.7
million dollars losses this year and citing losses from legal actions as a
contributing factor. EDO MBM will pay the protesters costs, expected to
be�tens of thousands of pounds.
Big questions remain over the handling of the case.
What has come to light is a
behind-the-scenes deal between EDO MBM, their lawyer Timothy Lawson Cruttenden
(the solicitor responsible for the injunction restricting protests outside the
Oxford Primate Lab), Sussex Police and possibly the National Extremism
Tactical Co-Ordinating Unit.
Andrew Beckett press spokesman for SMASH EDO said, “We were accused of
harassment by EDO, and Sussex Police, who secured an interim injunction on
trumped-up evidence, but it must be clear to the world after the collapse of
the injunction and the dropping of so many criminal cases that we are ones who
have been harassed, and it is they in who have been harassing Us”
EDO brought the injunction claim against 14 protesters and two protest groups
in April 2005, and by bringing spurious evidence into the case were able to
get an interim injunction against all protesters (i.e any member of the public
campaigning outside the factory, regardless of their conduct).
The defendants argued consistently that the use of the Protection from
Harassment Act to restrict protest infringed their rights under articles 10
and 11 of the ECHR. This was dramatically illustrated by the imprisonment on
remand of two protesters for alleged breaches of the injunction last summer.
Both cases were subsequently dropped before reaching court. Protesters were
placed under threat of five years imprisonment for any breach of the
injunction terms that prohibited simple acts such as standing in the road.
The two-week trial date that had been fixed for 21st November was then lost
because of the delaying tactics of EDO and their legal team. Judge Walker
expressed “grave concerns” about possible “bad faith” on the part of EDO. The
defendants complained about this in a counter attack that detailed evidence of
EDO lawyer Tim Lawson-Cruttenden’s “abuse of the legal process.”
To try and head off these damaging claims by the defence team and realising
the danger of losing this important argument, EDO Corp flew in their
Vice-president and General Counsel Lisa Palumbo to try and settle the case out
of court. Those defendants who were represented by publicly funded lawyers had
no choice but to accept the generous settlement offer or as it spelled the end
for legal aid funding, but the three litigants in person who did not rely on
public funding refused the deal as it involved signing undertakings that
placed restrictions on their future conduct.
The first litigant in person Ceri Gibbons who had joined the case voluntarily
to defend his right to protest, was then offered discontinuance and full costs
without condition of an undertaking, and he was released from the case on
February 13th 2006. Since the injunction against all protesters had been
narrowed only to included named defendants, and EDO had withdrawn all
allegations against him personally, the basic human rights battle had been
won.
The remaining two defendants Chris Osmond and Lorna Marcham then continued the
legal “abuse of process” attack against EDO which they eventually won. EDO had
clearly expected that after the settlement the resulting absence of defence
lawyers, and the new arrival of a QC and improved legal team working for them
to prove too intimidating for the litigants in person to fight. In the event
they put their case without lawyers and Judge Walker�s ruling condemnedEDO’s
“negligent and unprofessional conduct” in the case, and also blamed former
managing director of EDO, MBM David Jones for the way the case had not been
prepared more quickly for a full trial. David Jones resigned on December 31st
2005 for undisclosed reasons.
Meanwhile in Brighton peace protesters facing criminal charges for alleged
incidents related to protests at EDO’s factory have had dozens of cases
dropped by the CPS after a pivotal case in January where a District Judge
brought in from Surrey had ruled that documents concerning police
communications with EDO before the injunction was brought, should be opened to
public scrutiny. Criminal Defence solicitor Lydia Dagostino of Kelly’s
Solicitors,who had demanded that an outside judge deal with the case, said
that there “was likely to be evidence that implied improper relations between
Sussex Police and EDO and it was possible that arrests of protesters were made
to provide an atmosphere of disorder to convince a high court judge to give
the injunction.”
The CPS documents could have supported this argument if they had been
released. The CPS now face the prospect of having to drop all further criminal
cases against protesters if they want to keep the documents secret. Many
protesters believe they contain further evidence of a deliberate covert
operation involving Sussex Police, the National Extremist Tactical
Co-ordination Unit (NETCU), EDO Corporation, and Lawson-Cruttenden and Co. to
suppress protests at the factory.
In the year-long High Court case it was that Chief Inspector Kerry Cox of
Sussex Police had changed her witness statement to exaggerate her view of the
anticipated threat by protesters to company employees after direct pressure
from EDO’s lawyer Tim Lawson-Cruttenden. The altered statement was
instrumental in gaining EDO an interim injunction against protesters that
restricted their human rights.
The collapse of the EDO injunction case and also the 23 criminal charges
against anti-EDO protesters cast a shadow over all similar injunction cases
against animal rights protesters, as it highlights a shady practice by police
and court officers in a political operation to suppress freedom of expression,
acting in a manner that is clearly an abuse of the powers of the state over
political activity, but has been supported by the highest levels of the
government.
May 2006
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