The Political Thread

[Recrewt]

Sorry to hear of your recent problems Sharky.  Thinking of you mate.

[ZenArcade]

Totally endorse Hawks comments re slugging in the figurative sense, do it for real and these bastards have you. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

Been a hectic couple of days so haven't had time to write a report yet, sorry.

The thing that has cheered me the most has been my neighbours. Even the ones I didn't think liked me very much have been helping out and my close friends have been simply outstanding. I have been close to tears several times, not at my situation (which even I'm surprised to be taking almost in my stride) but at the seemingly fathomless bounds of human compassion. As one neighbour, who I never looked on as a friend, said - I akways have the time to stop and talk to her in the street and claims that I once helped her home with heavy shopping bags, although I have no memory of this it is the kind of thing I'm often doing just because it's in my nature.

Right now I'm relaxing at a good neighbour's house after being fed and waiting for the bath to fill. All my stuff, except the things I was stood up in when I got arrested, are still inside my flat, which has been sealed closed with metal shutters over all the windows and door, and I've been lent a tent (the garret fell through, unfortunately) and given clothes and food and a camping stove and all kinds of things.

On Monday I was disgusted with humanity but over the last two days I have re-learned how utterly brilliant ordinary human beings are. Take government out of the picture and people just blossom. Amazing and very, very humbling.

>wipes tear from eye<

[TordelBack]

Aye, well, people are at their most decent when you treat them decently, which you obviously have.  Glad to hear it, although a tent might not be quite the outcome I'd have hoped for it's a lot better than nothing.  Any reason given for effectively nicking all your stuff, Shark? 

[8-Ball]

Jeez-o Shark. Just take care of yourself, OK. I hope that things work out for you.

[The Legendary Shark]

Naw, Tordels - the Council isn't big on explaining itself - probably because it can't.

Now, there is a glimmer of hope (and it IS just a glimmer) that I can come out of this even but a lot of things have to go right and my plans have to be well laid and executed first - so, fingers crossed...

Anyhoo, I'm relaxing at a friend's house at the moment after enjoying my first bath in days and finally getting rid of that antiseptic cell stink and noticing a couple of fading bruises on my back which are now too faint to show up on a photo - unfortunately (at least in this case) I never did bruise very easily.

As promised, here's what happened:

Monday, 12 noon on the dot this time, the bailiffs turned up and, for the first ten minutes at least, things went more or less the same as the first time. Then it all started to go wrong. One of the outside invaders, I don't know who, began attacking the front door locks with a hammer. I immediately placed my back to the door, pushing with all my might. Bang! The Yale lock disintegrates and bits of it bounce off the back of my head. Bang! The deadlock is chiselled to oblivion and four or five of them start pushing at the door which now has only a security chain and me pushing it shut. The strain is enormous, and painful, but I have a wall to push against with my leg so the door stays mostly shut. So they fetch a battering ram, a thick wooden fence post of my own shed if you please, and begin to coordinate. Bang! Bang! Bang! And finally they get the bolt cutters through the gap and the chain is finally cut. Now it's just me holding the door shut as they repeatedly charge it. Somehow, soaked in sweat, quivering with strain and somewhere between abject terror and towering rage, all the time mindful of my language and attitude to give them no excuss, I manage to keep them out.

A pause. I'm panting like a Grand National winner and so are they. I can hear them talking but I can't tell what about. Then they begin battering at the door, and my back, again.

Crash! The bedroom window is smashed in and two coppers enter. That's it. Surrounded.

The two intruders wrestle me to the ground. I resist passively, not lashing out or punching or swearing but scrunching myself up, pulling away from every grab, writhing, generally being awkward. The door finally swings open, I manage to kick it shut again but it's a futile gesture. Another copper joins the frey and it's only a matter of time before they force the handcuffs on me.

They arrest me for "breach of the peace" - I refuse to "understand". How, I ask, can I breach the peace in my iwn home with all the windows and door locked, curtains shut, telly off and all by myself? Of course they don't listen and drag me outside, cuffed, with my neighbours looking on. One of them takes charge of my dog, poorittle bugger was terrified (thank God he didn't bite anyone or they'd have had him destroyed, I think) and spirited him away to safety. There were two police vans, at least one police car, two bailiffs, a smattering of council officials (including Stephen Jackson, Rent and Money Advice Services Manager, WLBC, Elson House, 49-51 Westgate, Sandy Lane Centre, Skelmersdale - the architect of this treachery) and a carpenter or two are there. All to deal with one Legendary Shark.

The same neighbour offers to get my tobacco tin for me and I agree because we have to wait for another police van to turn up to take me away in! I tell her where my baccy tin is but the coppers won't let her in and send a PCSO in to get it. The small van arrives and, as they're bundling me into it, the PCSO appears with my baccy tin and a grin. "Found this in the tin," he says, holding up a small bag of weed, mostly empty, with enough to make one, maybe two small joints. They then charge me with possession of a Class B drug as well. I shrug. "That's definitely my tin but I didn't see you retrieve it and I can't know where that bag you're holding came from."

Then in the van and off to Skelmersdale cop shop. On the way, the arresting officer tells me a 'joke' - "how many police officers does it take to crack an egg? None - it fell down the stairs."

The journey seems to take forever...

[The Legendary Shark]

At Skelmersdale police station. The Desk Sergeant, a lovely woman, fills in the arrest report. As the arresting officer explains what happened she types it all into the computer and then, as the details emerge, she stops typing. She doesn't say it out loud but she knows that this is a dodgy arrest - I tell her what I've been telling my kidnappers all the time; the police have no authority to act on a civil warrant; their role at evictions is simply to be on hand to prevent a breach of the peace in case I kick off at the bailiffs or the bailiffs kick off at me.

There is an awkward pause. "Oh - and we found a Class B drug on him." The seargent's face relaxes slightly but thank God I was paying attention.

"Excuse me, where did you say you found that?"

"Er, in his flat." The arresting officer holds up the small bag with it's pitifully meagre contents and the Sergeant's face again takes on a look of consternation. They take the cuffs off and put me in a cell with the door open while they go off for a conference. After this, the initial arrest for 'breach of the peace' is never mentioned again and I'm charged with possession of a Class B drug. I again refuse to understand. They read me my rights and I reject them. "You do what?"

"I reject the rights and privileges you offer and choose instead to stand under my Common Law rights."

They're visibly worried now but lock me in a cell anyway.

I'm nearly 48 years old and have never been arrested before. Being locked in that small, bare cell with nothing to occupy myself with was bloody hard work. I've often heard people saying they felt the walls closing in on them but never experienced that feeling until that time. I was surprised how short a time it took for me to just want to scream - but there was a cctv camera in the cell and so I forced myself to be calm, ran through stories and story ideas in my head to keep my mind busy.

Some hours later a pleasant young copper escorted me from the cell to the interview room to take my statement about the weed. As he's fiddling about putting the cassette tapes into the recorder we chat amiably.

"I don't know why we still use these old fashioned things," he says, almost embarrassed by the ancient technology.

"It's because it's analogue and very difficult to tamper with - it's far easier to manipulate digital recordings," I tell him.

He's impressed. "Oh wow, yeah, I never thought of that. You know, I do like talking to i telligent, well-informed people," he says.

I smile. "You won't do in five minutes," I say with a smile.

He laughs and asks his first question, simply requesting I verify my name and address.

"I neither confirm nor deny my identity."

His face darkens. "As you were told when you were arrested, if you fail to mention something..."

"Doesn't apply to me," I said, "I rejected those proffered rights and am standing under Common Law."

He decides to move swiftly on, asking if the cannabis is mine, where I get it, who's my dealer and so on. To every question I answer, calmly and with a faint smile, "no comment." In the end he loses patience and terminates the interview having learned precisely one thing - that he really doesn't like talking to i telligent, well informed people.

I'm taken back to the Desk Sergeant, a man with bloodshot eyes and terminal boredom, who says I'm free to go - if I just sign this form admitting to possession.

"No."

She's faken aback. "But... that just means we'll have to lock you back up again."

I shrug, turn away and walk back to that dreaded cell of my own volition. They're properly flummoxed now but it's lesson time. I don't see another human face until the morning and spend one of the longest nights of my life alone with my thoughts and the fevered rantings and incessant banging on the door of the crack-head in a nearby cell.

[Trout]

Bloody hell, Shark. You're an eccentric bugger but I wish you all the best! 

[The Legendary Shark]

At some time between 11 and 12 thd next morning, a civilian officer opens the cell door. She informs me that it's time for me to be photographed, finger printed and DNA tested. I politely decline the offer. "You what?"

"I'm not a criminal. I have committed no crime and am standing under common law, therefore I do not consent to this."

Her face darkens, I seem to be having that effect quite a lot, and she informs me that if I don't comply, I will be forced.

"I can't stop you but neither will I assist you. I can't fight you but I will not cooperate."

She storms out of my cell, which I'm beginning to warm to, strangely, slamming the heavy door shut in frustration. Some 30 minutes later five coppers erupt into the cell and escort me to the fingerprinting room. They try to take my photo but I keep my head down and refuse to look at the camera. One of them grabs my head and forces it up into position and so I screw my eyes shut and pull a face. They take the photo anyway and move on to the fingerprinting. With five of them holding onto me and struggling to uunclench my fists and mash my writhing hands onto the scanner plate it must've taken them half an hour to complete the task and they're getting more and more frustrated.

Then comes the DNA test. I clamp my mouth tightly shut as the civilian officer advances with a swab. Now, you have to remember that by this time I have one copper clamped on my right arm, one on my left and the others just hanging around me lending a hand whenever needed. The civilian officer forces her probe into my mouth, nicking my lip slightly. It hurts and I instinctively grab for the swab, which is in the civilian officer's hand.

One of the coppers, seeing this, shouts "Assault! Take him down!" and the next thing I know I'm on the deck with five coppers kneeling on me. While I'm distracted, the swab is again thrust into my mouth but I manage to clamp it between my teeth, bite the end off and spit it onto the floor. They give up and throw me back into my cell, informing me that I now had "assaulting a police officer" added to the charge of "possession". I again refuse to understand.

Many hours later I'm taken to Ormskirk Magistrate's Court for a hearing to decide if I need to go to trial. The possession charge evaporates completely into nothingness and initial breach of the peace charge (for which I was originally arrested, if you recall) was never mentioned. A trial date of June 26th was set for my "assault" trial, the cuffs were removed and I was released on unconditional bail. I made sure to treat the court and all its officials with the utmost respect - they have, after all, done me no wrong and seem like decent people. I do, however, make sure that tbe soliciter I've been saddled with mentions the initial unlawful arrest a d the fact that I thought the initial arresting officer was acting beyond his jurisdiction.

Then I was set free and came home to find my flat all sealed up with steel shutters, all my worldly possessions trapped inside, beyond my reach. At that point I almost gave up, almost despaired, until first one then another then yet more neighbours approached me with concern and offers of help.

So, as you may be able to deduce, I do have a chance - but it's a slim one. I won't spell it out in case Stephen Jackson is reading this but, if he (or anyone else involved) is reading this, I think they'd be right to be concerned.

There was more to it than I've been able to explain here, but not much and only details, and a few things slightly embellished for the sake of the narrative but, basically, this is what went down.

So, who would win in a fight between a pack of wolves and a shark? I think that still remains to be seen...

[JayzusB.Christ]

Feckin' hell, mate, that's some story.  One of the most disturbing parts is the bit about the copper telling you the 'joke'.  I won't say ACAB, but most of the ones I've met are.
A tent to stay in... jesus.  Lucky it's coming up to summer; I really hope you can sort something more substantial out soon.
Surely they can't take your possessions off you though? That's not part of the eviction 'deal' as I understand it?

[TordelBack]

Can't even tell you how upsetting a read that is mate, but you certainly tell it well. 

To go from 'breach of the peace' to 'possession' to 'assaulting a police officer' by simply sitting peacefully in your home (however contested the title) is completely shocking.  I'm a well-established naif, but the idea of police officers breaking your bedroom window and grappling with you because you refuse to allow your door to be stove in seems an appalling betrayal.  I've been the subject of a similar event, a police raid where my (rented) front door was battered while two armed gardai smashed in my (rented) kitchen window and climbed in, but that was on foot of a (mistaken) anti-terrorism warrant - and that at least  I can understand: the mistaken assumption was that I had committed a violent crime and would probably be armed.  I was sh*tting myself, but at least I knew, and very quickly they knew, that they had the wrong man.

What exactly had you done that warranted the aggression of those who are empowered to maintain public order?  Surely this was a matter for the local authority to resolve, not the cops?  Is any of this in society's interest, in the community's interest?

I do worry that there's an essential contradiction between your (fascinating, courageous, barmy and extremely risky) insistence on not recognising the authority of the process you find yourself fucked over by, and asserting the illegality of the same process.  I very much want to believe that the actions you describe so eloquently will (and should) be viewed as illegal, but how does that work if you yourself reject the legal code that judges are bound by?

Anyway, the important thing is that you seem to have emerged inexplicably hale from an experience that would have me blubbing in a corner, and you need to keep it that way.  Try to find a course that will be easier on you, you've sacrificed nearly everything by keeping faith with your ideas, you don't need to do anything more than try to get back to a more comfortable, safer existence. 

[Tiplodocus]

All the best to you, Shark.

As a general rule, it always amazes me how readily people put stuff on this forum that could be used against them (e.g. the Best Spliff ever thread) by employers or polis etc.  Is there a way for people to contact the Mods to get any posts they may have made foolishly, removed?


I've only ever folded like a jedi at the end of Revenge of the Sith when faced with authority figures

e.g. when suggesting that money fraudulently taken from one of my debit cards be reported as a crime
"No, sir, you don't want to do that. It's a bank issue".
"Yes, but the bank don't have the power to find the address to which all of the goods ordered from my card were delivered and shut it down. You should be doing something about that"
"Do you really want to push this. Sir. We suggest you don't".
"Er... OK, not really.".

[Dandontdare]

All the best Sharky - I would LOVE to see a copy of that mugshot though!

[JayzusB.Christ]

Sorry about my last post - completely the wrong link. Any chance a mod could delete it?

[James Stacey]

All the best Sharky. If anyone is going to triumph it will be you.