Post by QPR Report on Dec 18, 2008 14:41:37 GMT
Guardian/Henry Porter
Football fans have rights too - Under cover of the Violent Crime Reduction Act, police are taking arbitrary and oppressive action against football fans
There may be only one effective way of dealing with local police forces that abuse football supporters and breach their rights to free assembly and that is for football supporters to boycott a city where they are treated badly. But this may require a revolution in organisation and the self-respect of club supporters, as well as proper knowledge of their rights under the law
A few weeks ago I revealed here that 80 football supporters from Stoke-on-Trent had been issued with Section 27 under the Violent Crime Reduction Act by the Manchester police, forced on to buses and escorted back to Stoke by police without being allowed to see the match with Manchester City, without being offered an apology , or – naturally – a refund for the price of their tickets.
Some of the Stoke fans met at the Railway Inn in Irlam for a pre-match pint. According to a letter sent to the chief constable of Greater Manchester, Peter Fahy, by the chairman of the Football Supporters Federation, Dr Malcolm Clark, the pub landlord made no complaint to the police and there was no trouble in the pub. Yet the pub was surrounded by police and the supporters imprisoned before each one of them was required to sign Section 27 forms on pain of arrest. According to Dr Clark some of these forms contained false statements by the police.
The investigations by the FSF have found that Manchester City fans also experienced oppressive policing. One Manchester City supporter wrote: "Just thought I should let you know that my husband and son experienced appalling treatment from the police after this game and we are City supporters. We came up from Pembrokeshire, where we have been living for the last 20 years, to watch this game, as we have many times before. My husband who is 51, and son who is 25, walked from the ground back to Piccadilly station and were rounded up with a group of unassuming Stoke supporters like cattle. They were treated very badly, pushed, shoved and coraled up to the station, despite many attempts to tell the police that they were not with one of your groups."
The behaviour of the police was clearly oppressive and arbitrary. Using the Human Rights Act, Liberty has taken up the fight on behalf of the Stoke supporters. A press release issued today says: "Deprived of toilet facilities on the coach, the supporters were instructed to urinate into cups, which spilled over the floor of the bus so that they had to sit with urine sloshing around their feet for the 40-mile journey back."
The Section 27 form is a new power that allows police to direct individuals to leave a locality. This is where an individual's presence is likely to cause or contribute to the occurrence, repetition or continuance of alcohol-related crime or disorder in a locality and it is necessary to remove the individual from the locality for the purpose of removing or reducing the likelihood of there being such crime or disorder in the locality.
Dr Clark points out that this measure was abused by Greater Manchester police because the law grants no power to take collective action; officers must have good reason for invoking Section 27 – ie a complaint from a landlord or evidence of drunken behaviour; and there is no power to require a person served with a Section 27 form to sign anything.
This would all be less worrying if it was a one-off but there is evidence to suggest other police forces are following the example of Manchester. Two weeks ago supporters from Plymouth Argyll were prevented from seeing a match at Doncaster, forcibly put on coaches and escorted across three police areas by vehicles and a helicopter. The FSF are investigating the incident but from the account I have received it seems that the tactics of South Yorkshire police were even more oppressive than those of the Greater Manchester police.
Clearly winning the legal support of Liberty will be an important part of challenging the way this new law is being abused but it may come to the point where fans do have to act in concert and place boycotts on towns and cities where the rights are abused. Manchester has two great soccer teams, which need the income from fans who travel long distances to spend money at their grounds. This economic power could become an important weapon, if football supporters begin to realise that the right to assemble freely is of critical importance to a free society and that police actions in Manchester and South Yorkshire have implications for all of us.
Readers Comments also at:
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/18/civilliberties-humanrights
Football fans have rights too - Under cover of the Violent Crime Reduction Act, police are taking arbitrary and oppressive action against football fans
There may be only one effective way of dealing with local police forces that abuse football supporters and breach their rights to free assembly and that is for football supporters to boycott a city where they are treated badly. But this may require a revolution in organisation and the self-respect of club supporters, as well as proper knowledge of their rights under the law
A few weeks ago I revealed here that 80 football supporters from Stoke-on-Trent had been issued with Section 27 under the Violent Crime Reduction Act by the Manchester police, forced on to buses and escorted back to Stoke by police without being allowed to see the match with Manchester City, without being offered an apology , or – naturally – a refund for the price of their tickets.
Some of the Stoke fans met at the Railway Inn in Irlam for a pre-match pint. According to a letter sent to the chief constable of Greater Manchester, Peter Fahy, by the chairman of the Football Supporters Federation, Dr Malcolm Clark, the pub landlord made no complaint to the police and there was no trouble in the pub. Yet the pub was surrounded by police and the supporters imprisoned before each one of them was required to sign Section 27 forms on pain of arrest. According to Dr Clark some of these forms contained false statements by the police.
The investigations by the FSF have found that Manchester City fans also experienced oppressive policing. One Manchester City supporter wrote: "Just thought I should let you know that my husband and son experienced appalling treatment from the police after this game and we are City supporters. We came up from Pembrokeshire, where we have been living for the last 20 years, to watch this game, as we have many times before. My husband who is 51, and son who is 25, walked from the ground back to Piccadilly station and were rounded up with a group of unassuming Stoke supporters like cattle. They were treated very badly, pushed, shoved and coraled up to the station, despite many attempts to tell the police that they were not with one of your groups."
The behaviour of the police was clearly oppressive and arbitrary. Using the Human Rights Act, Liberty has taken up the fight on behalf of the Stoke supporters. A press release issued today says: "Deprived of toilet facilities on the coach, the supporters were instructed to urinate into cups, which spilled over the floor of the bus so that they had to sit with urine sloshing around their feet for the 40-mile journey back."
The Section 27 form is a new power that allows police to direct individuals to leave a locality. This is where an individual's presence is likely to cause or contribute to the occurrence, repetition or continuance of alcohol-related crime or disorder in a locality and it is necessary to remove the individual from the locality for the purpose of removing or reducing the likelihood of there being such crime or disorder in the locality.
Dr Clark points out that this measure was abused by Greater Manchester police because the law grants no power to take collective action; officers must have good reason for invoking Section 27 – ie a complaint from a landlord or evidence of drunken behaviour; and there is no power to require a person served with a Section 27 form to sign anything.
This would all be less worrying if it was a one-off but there is evidence to suggest other police forces are following the example of Manchester. Two weeks ago supporters from Plymouth Argyll were prevented from seeing a match at Doncaster, forcibly put on coaches and escorted across three police areas by vehicles and a helicopter. The FSF are investigating the incident but from the account I have received it seems that the tactics of South Yorkshire police were even more oppressive than those of the Greater Manchester police.
Clearly winning the legal support of Liberty will be an important part of challenging the way this new law is being abused but it may come to the point where fans do have to act in concert and place boycotts on towns and cities where the rights are abused. Manchester has two great soccer teams, which need the income from fans who travel long distances to spend money at their grounds. This economic power could become an important weapon, if football supporters begin to realise that the right to assemble freely is of critical importance to a free society and that police actions in Manchester and South Yorkshire have implications for all of us.
Readers Comments also at:
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/18/civilliberties-humanrights