Last Straw

Bind­mans, a Lon­don law firm, is pre­par­ing to launch a legal chal­lenge against the UK police’s use of ket­tling:

Bind­mans is … pre­par­ing to launch a legal chal­lenge against the use of “ket­tling”, the police tac­tic used to pen in 5,000 people dur­ing the G20 protests and a strategy which led to pro­test­ers suf­fer­ing asthma and panic attacks. John Halford, a part­ner in Bind­mans, said that the firm had held talks with Cli­mate Camp legal advisers on Fri­day to pre­pare to launch a judi­cial review against the con­tain­ment of protesters.

Halford said that “ket­tling” is leg­ally jus­ti­fi­able only when there is no altern­at­ive to address actual or immin­ent viol­ence. He said: “There is much to sug­gest that ‘ket­tling’ was the first thing resor­ted to as a response to a peace­ful demon­stra­tion that was con­sidered a nuis­ance by the police. Worse, many pro­test­ers have repor­ted unpro­voked baton charges and other forms of intim­id­a­tion while they were penned in. We plan to ensure all of this is examined by the courts.”

I’ve exper­i­enced ket­tling before as part of a peace­ful demon­stra­tion in 2003 against the world’s largest arms trade fair, DSEi, held every other year at East London’s ExCeL Centre. I spent most of my time in the kettle try­ing to explain par­ti­cip­at­ory eco­nom­ics to the police. An enga­ging lot to be sure.