Notts Police Intimidate Pensioner

THE JUSTICE Campaign has always highlighted instances of injustice against other sections of workers by publicising their cases in our newsletters which are sent to 1,500 supporters, mostly trade union and Labour Party branches. In 1991 we discovered quite a shocking case of systematic police intimidation against a frail retired miner that started during the strike in 1984 and even continued for several years after the strike had ended in 1985. The intimidation started against Notts miner Sid Richmond in 1984 when was 70 years.

Sid, a regular of the Justice Campaign right from the start brought the case to our January 1991 meeting We'll let Sid tell the story in his own words, in the form of a letter he read out to the Justice Campaign:

"On Monday June 25th 1990 I was before the magistrates at Mansfield Law Court. I was accused of not producing car driving documents when asked to do so. I told the court I had special reasons for not producing them. The following outlines my reasons:

During 1984 I was attacked, beaten up and robbed of my car by a bunch of terrorists calling themselves London policemen, just for the reason that I would not turn back at a road block. This despite the fact that I was alone, aged seventy and on my way to visit my daughter.

I took my car off the road for two years after that to let things quieten down. As soon as I put my car back on the road the harassment began again. Three times I was pulled up for silly reasons but when I pulled out the small tape recorder I had brought they backed off.

Since then, if am out late at night and they see me I am followed home right to my house to let me know that Big Brother is watching. After the third time I made a point of having this harassment and intimidation recorded by a local solicitor.

Altogether I have, over a two year period, been followed home fifteen times. I have never been charged and my car and driving has to be first class.

This last time however the two policeman got out of the car and followed me on to my property. When I asked why, one said "are you aware that you came over three road junctions without indicating?"

The time was just about midnight. In court he admitted I had committed no offence. He admitted he was on my property without authority. However, I was still found guilty of not producing documents and with costs ordered to pay £90."

Sid informed us he would not be paying his fine, a decision that was to have quite serious consequences for him and his wife.

POLICE STEP UP INTIMIDATION

That should have been the end of the story, but it wasn't to be so. In our next meeting in March 1991 Sid informed us that events had taken an even worse turn since then. At his next court appearance after refusing to pay is £90 fine the magistrate informed him that £85 of the £90 fine had been paid anonymously and he was asked to pay the remaining £5. Sid once again refused and was told to stay at the back of the court for the rest of the day's proceedings. At the end of the day he was told that this attendance had purged his fine and he was now free to go. There the matter should have rested – but it didn't.

The Terror Starts
A few days later Sid got a letter from the police informing him that he could be arrested on the street and his possessions taken from him to pay the remaining part of the fine. Sid ignored this as he'd been told by the magistrate that his fine had been purged.

Imagine his horror when a few days after this two policemen, one at his front door and one at his back door, turned up early in the morning with a warrant to arrest him for a 24 hour prison sentence for non payment of his fine. Sid, speaking to them from an upstairs window, told them the fine had been purged and refused to let them into his house. For the next 20 minutes the two policemen kept up a barrage of shouting and banging at his front and back doors and windows. The shouting and banging were so loud that neighbours from the street came out to see what was happening and Sid's wife who was downstairs was reduced to state of hysteria. Sid had to send for his daughter, who is a nurse, to calm his wife down after the police had left. If we tell you that Sid was 75 and his wife 70 at the time, you can begin to see the scale of the police intimidation involved.

A few days later Sid got a letter informing him that his unpaid £5 fine had been purged, a fact which was known all the time. Sid will now be suing those responsible for the humiliation suffered in front of his neighbours and will be demanding compensation for the state of collapse his wife was reduced to.

After the road block incident during the strike in which Sid had been dragged out of his car, beaten up and had his car taken from him, he successfully sued the police for damages, a fact which may explain why he has been repeatedly intimidated ever since. His defiance in the face of this continuous harassment was astonishing, knowing as he did that far from causing the police to back off, taking them to court again might only provoke them further and unleash a fresh wave of intimidation against a frail and otherwise defenceless pensioner.

But nothing seemed to frighten our Sid. He had, after all, experienced the full horror of the Dunkirk evacuations in 1940, so he was battle hardened in every sense of that phrase.

Jailed for Poll Tax non-payment
Sid died in 1993 aged 83, but not before he'd also gone to jail, not once but twice, for nonpayment of his Poll Tax. One of the most ill fated and badly thought out taxes of all time, this masterpiece of Tory stupidity was brought down by mass nonpayment in the early 1990's. The Peasant's Revolt of the fourteenth century had been provoked by the introduction of a 'Poll Tax' ('poll' is an old English word for 'head') and the attempt to repeat this folly in the twentieth century also sparked a massive revolt.

Sid was just one of thousands who were jailed for refusing to pay what was clearly one of the most unjust and unfair taxes ever devised. So great was the countrywide opposition that the Tories hastily backed down in the face of such concerted and determined opposition. Wherever Sid is now we only hope that the authorities will take note and treat him a bit more carefully than the earthly authorities did.