Angry parents say air protest girls held in solitary for 36 hours
09.10.06
Police have been criticised over the arrest of twenty five protesters involved in a peaceful demonstration at East Midlands Airport, the Observer newspaper reports. Parents of three families have attacked the way their children were treated.
On September 24 the protesters from 'Plane Stupid', who are targeting the aviation industry's contribution to the pollution causing climate change, broke in to East Midlands Airport and staged a four hour protest. All twenty five were arrested and they have since been charged with trespass and criminal damage offences.
However Frances Rickford and her former husband, Brendan Martin, claim that their daughters, Rose, 21, and Ellen 18, two of the protesters, were held in solitary confinement for 36 hours after their arrest without being allowed to make a phone call.
The girls were released at separate times late at night on 25 September after they had been held at a police station at Euston Street, Leicester. The sisters were also told not to talk to one another as a condition of their bail, it is alleged. Their money, keys and mobile telephones were confiscated.
Other parents have complained about the way the police searched their homes after the arrests. Anna McKay, a lawyer whose 17-year-old son Toby was also one of those arrested, described how she was telephoned at work to be told by the police that they were searching her house in Crouch End, north London. The police had broken her door down to gain entry, causing £1000 worth of damage.
Andy Freedman told the newspaper that his house was searched because his 20-year-old daughter was one of the protesters. Officers were let into his house in Stroud, by a neighbour holding a spare key to the property. 'I was shocked that my personal property was removed,' he added, saying that he needed a computer that was seized for his work.
Around 1000 passengers were delayed by the protesters, who breached a perimeter fence before holding a sit in on the taxiway between two cargo holds. All 25 protesters will face trial at Leicester Crown Court.
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