W. Sussex CC v BCPC

Ello my little Chickidee’s,

So, who wants to know what’s been happening at Balcombe? What, all of you?! OK then, I’ll tell ya…

On Monday 9th Sept some bods telling us they were from West Sussex County Council, but who refused to show any ID, arrived on site and after having a good snoop around decided to place so-called ‘eviction notices’ around the camp, telling us we had to be off by the following day or they would begin proceedings against us. And with that half the camp flew into a panic.

Myself and Prajna, being experienced in such matters, knew that the council would have to go through a whole process before they could evict (as has since been borne out by the high court, but we’ll come to that shortly).

Sadly, try as he might to bring some calm, Prajna was talked over by those convinced that we would be evicted the following day (and/or those who simply wanted to spread panic) during the resulting camp meeting. Suffice to say, though, that Tuesday came and went with no eviction. Unfortunately several campers had already packed and left by then.

What did happen on Tuesday 10th, though, was that I was violently assaulted by a cop. You can view the whole sordid saga here -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-wRRMAKU5g, with thanks to Truth Ferret Films for the invaluable footage!

Following this I took Wednesday off but was feeling fit enough to continue with my lawful right to peaceful protest the following day. I decided to take my usual place in the middle of the road to walk down a delivery into the fracking site. I started ahead of the police line and hobbled my way down on me crutches. It wasn’t long before the police caught up with me and decided to arrest me for being on the crutches they put me on, or, as they called it, ‘obstruction of the highway’. Naturally I have granted them no jurisdiction over me, and only complied with their demands knowing that they would use force on me if I refused.

Seven hours or so later and I was released, bailed to return to Crawly Police Station at 1pm on 3rd Oct. Now, funnily enough, October 3rd just happens to be Prajna and my anniversary, so our question to you now is, how do you fancy celebrating with us at Crawley nick on that day? 🙂

I will be attending the police station as requested, because I know they will use force against me if I don’t, however I will make it just as clear, as I always do, that they have no authority or jurisdiction over me, and that I am there under duress.

In the meantime Prajna and I are on the hunt for a tattooist to fix our wedding tats… one that will come to the station with us and ink us there. (You may or may not know that just three weeks after getting our wedding tats last year I changed my name from kazz to kali, and this needs to be changed on our tats.) We’ve intended for a long time now that we’d have them changed on our anniversary and see no reason what-so-ever to change that just because the lawless and corrupt State wants our company on that day.

So come to Crawley Police Station on 3rd Oct and help us celebrate two years of harmony and love.

But before I get carried away with all the hearts ‘n’ flowers stuff, I still have to tell you all about the camp’s recent action in the Royal Courts of Justice…

Having been arrested on the Thursday, myself and Prajna were enjoying a little R&R at a local arrestee support safe house. I’d spent most of Friday in bed feeling pretty ill after 3 days of pain-killers and was in a fair bit of pain. I came downstairs late in the afternoon to discover that the Council had issued notices of their intended ‘expedited eviction’ of the camp to be heard in the Royal Courts of Justice the following Monday morning, giving less than 24 hours (working days) notice. So arrestee support, Prajna, myself and a couple of other arrestees who were staying at the safe house along with camp supporters, got to work straight away calling legal eagles to find a way forward… and in around 2 hours we had ourselves a pro-bono barrister… All we needed was a named person for her to represent on the day.

We came back to camp on the Saturday only to discover that after 8 hours of ‘meetings’ (or should I call them ‘brow-beatings’??) the camp had reached a ‘consensus’ to clear off the site and to turn up at the court on Monday only to tell the judge we’d been wasting her time, the councils time, and even our own time… OK, I’m using a little creative licence there, they just wanted to say there was no camp to evict, but it amounts to the same thing.

Now, by this time Prajna had had a chance to take a preliminary look at the notice the camp had been served and had already noted that they had done no welfare checks and had failed to consider our human rights, so we knew that their paper-work was flawed. So, after some considerable discussion, during which we asserted that there was NO consensus (actually every single soul I spoke to told me they were staying) it was decided that some would be staying here to hold the ground whilst others went off to avail themselves of the facilities being offered by a local farmer who’d offered a fully equipped camp site for our use until the end of October.

Next we got together all those planning to challenge the Councils actions in the High Court and began to thrash out our arguments and questions to put to our legal reps. And we found a very brave lady who was willing to put her name forward to be represented by ‘our’ barrister, knowing that if things didn’t go our way she’d be liable for the other sides costs. But as she said herself, when you have nothing you have nothing to loose.

And so off we trundled back to the safe house to prepare our case and to send instructions to our barrister. Poor Prajna spent almost all of Sunday reading through the councils notice, countering their arguments and identifying their mistakes. Eventually though, we had all we needed to send to the barrister… And then our minds turned to transport! And before you know it, arrestee support had organised a mini-bus for us… all we had to do was go to Brighton and collecting… oh, and take it back the next day.

And so we returned to camp. Prajna, being the designated driver then had to head off to Brighton along with a couple of others, to pick up the minibus, but eventually, some time after midnight, he got to have a smoke and unwind.

We were up at 6am the following morning and off to London and the Royal Courts of Justice by 7.30… I’ll spare you the details of traffic and full-up car-parks… Suffice to say we arrived just in time to catch our breath and relax as the 10.30 start came and went.

Dozens of us ushered into the courtroom at around 11am and took seats at the back and along the side. And it wasn’t too long before we got our first big laugh of the day. That came when the Councils Barrister stated that he had not had enough time to prepare for the hearing. Oh, how we laughed! And when the Judge told him she would give him ’10 minutes to get his tackle in order’ we knew we were on a winner.

When the court reconvened ‘our’ barrister (who was the best prepared of them all) was careful to point out that the council had conducted no Human Rights Assessments (and this before a judge who’d made a career in HR law) and no Welfare Checks. Very soon the conversation turned to adjournment and it was decided that the case would be adjourned without a return date; the council could bring their action again any time before the 8th October, but that they would need to have done a complete Human Rights Assessment along with welfare checks for all residents. And if they do not bring the case back to the court they will incur costs (including for the pro-bono barristers, who’s costs will go to the pro-bono fund – thanks again to ‘our’ barrister) for Mondays hearing.

So, a VERY long drive out of London followed by a trip to Brighton and back to return the minibus and at last our work was done and we could relax and celebrate.

And now, here I sit, several days later, in the tech tent at the Balcombe Community Protection Camp, updating the blog. We’ll hold the land here until Cuadrilla move on, and no injunction means we hold the right to return when the actual fracking begins… if of course we haven’t managed to stop fracking across the country before then!

Next stop may well be Manchester (woohooo!), only time will tell.

I will, when I get enough internet time, write a blog about fracking, what it entails and what it’s long and short term results may be.

In the meantime I send love and warm hugs from myself and my beautiful orange Prajna and from all at the Balcombe Community Protection Camp.

Kali. xxxxx

P.S. Please, if you haven’t already, do a little research into the Tavistock Institute and into ‘the delphi technique’ and you will soon discover the importance of ‘consensus’ to those who employ social engineering techniques to guide and shape our activities. You can do worse than research Co-Intel-Pro during the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s also… then you may gain some insight into how various movements are infiltrated in order to be brought down from within. Very appropriate for the times we live in…