December 27, 2005
First person in court for holding a "demonstration" on their own in the SOCPA Designated Area.
The first person to be arrested for holding a "demonstration" on their own without prior written permission from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, within the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Designated Area, is due to appear at Bow Street Magistrates Court around 10am Wednesday 29th December 2005.
We think that Barbara Tucker was arrested on Monday 19th December 2005, near Parliament carrying a banner saying "I am not the Serious Organised Criminal".
She seems to be the first person to have been arrested and charged under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 section 132(1) (c)
132 Demonstrating without authorisation in designated area (1) Any person who-
[snip]
(c) carries on a demonstration by himself in a public place in the designated area,
According to Section 136 of SOCPA, this could attract the penalty of a criminal record (DNA, fingerprints etc. retained forever) and a potential fine of up to £ 1,000
(2) A person guilty of an offence under section 132(1)(b) or (c) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
How can one unarmed person, on their own, pose any threat or hinderance to the operations of the Houses of Parliament whatsoever ?
This brings the number of people we know about, arrested so fa under SOCPA, to 22, although there may actually be more than this.
Posted by Peaceful Demonstrator at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
This was copied from the website
http://parliamentprotest.org.uk