Current mood: YOU GOTTA SPEED IT UP, AND THEN YOU GOTTA SLOW IT
Category: YOU GOTTA SPEED IT UP, AND THEN YOU GOTTA SLOW IT Life
So, 3 arrests in 5 months might sound like a decent rate of return for a nipper of 17/18 years of age, but compared with some of my older co-conspirators, this was a very poor tally indeed, and at times I felt like I wasn't pulling my weight....
Yes boss, by the time I was off the con mark, some of my workmates were already well into double figures for the year!!
But though multiple arrests certainly ensured plenty of good press and a hearty feeling of self righteousness, it also meant a life dominated by one long set of court appearances, and after initially reveling in the badness of it all, it soon became clear that such a scenario wasn't the best strategy for a sustained campaign...
In the long run, I was therefore pretty happy with my more modest total.
The Police without Sting...
The strange thing with these 3 arrests, and, for that matter those that have come since to Planet Paul, is that the police have always made a nonsense of them...
Yes boss, down the years, I've done plenty to warrant serious and minor convictions on completely legitimate terms, but each time I've been pulled, I've been doing absolutely nothing wrong....
As a result, I've never even been fined for a criminal action let alone sentenced to prison.
In most cases the charges have been completely dropped, and in two cases, I've successfully sued the police for £2000 and £4000 in the civil courts..
Number 1
The first time I got the official wrong side of the law was at a demonstration against a quarry in Somerset.
The charge was Breach Of The Peace.
Now, what I actually did, was to wander about a quarry for a few hours, leave when asked to (under escort of the police) then immediately return, wherein I was arrested.
I was held for a little over 24 hours in Shepton Mallett nick and then cautioned in court the next day.
I later sued the Police for wrongful imprisonment, unlawful imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
They paid me £2000 in an out of court settlement.
Number 2
My second trip to the cells was a few weeks later at Twyford Down which (because it was 5 miles down the road from home) was where I spent most of my time
The charge this time was a rather curious Breach of The Peace AND Obstruction of The Police (a made up and illegal combination) and I was held for over 53 hours.
The Police attempted to bind us by bail conditions that would mean we couldn't go anywhere near the area of protest, but we steadfastly refused them and went on hunger strike ot make it clear we weren't joking...
I was convicted at Andover Magistrates court a few weeks later and recieved a conditional discharge.
Later, by subpoenering the polices own video evidence, as well as that taken by the Private Detectives (who were paid over £250,000 by the UK government to follow and spy on us) I successfully sued the police for wrongful imprisonment, unlawful imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
They paid out £4000 out of court, but I only got £3500.
Paying the law...
The £500 I lost, was automatically deducted as 'costs' for the £1.4 million High Court Injunction, The Department of Transport had slapped on 68 of the most persistent Twyford Down offenders, of which I was one.
Basically, having tried the 'arrest and scare the hippies route' to no effect, The DoT and constructors Tarmac had sought other means to keep us in check.
Once passed, the High Court Injunction banned us from an area of land the road was being built on. It also sought to claim the costs of the delays and the night time criminal damage to their works on the road up till that point...
This meant the 68 of us were collectively liable for this £1.4m, as well facing up to a month inside, for each time we were caught breaking the new rules.
Happy Birthday Paul!!!
I was issued with that injunction on the nail of my 18th birthday.
I remember it arriving on the mat with the birthday cards.
WELCOME TO THE ADULT WORLD PAUL!!! HERE'S A HIGH COURT INJUNCTION!!! YOU OWE US 1/68th of £1.4m!!!!!
Changing Tactics...
So, with the Injunction in place, we had to shift our focus...
My third arrest was therefore for burgulry in Wolverhampton.
This one was curious in that I was kind of guilty, but only in a ridiculous way.
What had happened was that we'd all gone up to Wolverhampton near Birmingham in order to raid the offices of Tarmac, the main contractor on the M3
In our minds it was a question of:
'If we can't bother you on the construction site, then we'll come to your offices instead!'
It was simple enough.
We'd turn up in broad daylight, ransack the office, ruin the hard drives, refile the cabinets, make a lot of noise, scare the secretaries, make phonecalls to Zambia, steal anything useful, and then get the hell out of there before the police were organised enough to do anything about it....
Empty your pockets....
The day I got caught red handed, we'd had a lot of trouble getting inside the buildings.
Basically they were expecting us and had employed lots of extra security guards and heavily locked all the doors.
However because Tarmac owned half of Wolverhampton, we eventually got inside a subsiduary office, wherein we caused havoc, threw selected contents of the office out of the window, and (for a reason to this day I still can't quite fathom), hung around long enough to get ourselves caught...
But that wasn't the only mistake I made.
No boss, it was clear we were fucked when the police boot came through the door. I therefore immediately set about liquidating my pockets of the various bits and pieces I'd purloined, and prepared myself for another night in the cells.
Pockets cleared, I got dragged out (appearing on the local news which my parents happened to be watching whilst visiting friends in the midlands - which pleased them no end) and was taken to the cop shop and searched..
Mistake number 2 was that I hadn't properly cleared my pockets.
No boss, remaining within those voluminous confines were some confidential MOD contracts and a nice colourful leaflet detailing the locations of all of Tarmacs offices countrywide. And because they had nothing on anyone else (these were pre-CCTV days) I was put through the mill on 'Burgulry' charges.
I was banned from Wolverhampton until after the trial (a small mercy some might say) and whilst my lawyers tried plea bargaining the charge to a simple Breach of The Peace (and given that I was already banned by way of the Injunction from the construction site) I figured it was time to go to Scotland, to get some fresh air and to find the wilderness...
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