Brighton MP criticizes police surveillance of environmentalist meeting

[Richard Goodgroome]

Police ‘scare tactics'
10:00am Thursday 12th February 2009
By Andy Tate, Parliamentary Correspondent
The Arugs (Brighton)

An MP has accused Sussex Police of deliberately intimidating patrons
of a social club.

In a surprise intervention David Lepper, Labour MP for Brighton
Pavilion, said the police’s decision to photograph people entering and
exiting the Cowley Club in London Road for a meeting about the
environment last week appeared designed to scare activists rather than
prevent crime.

Mr Lepper has written to Chief Supt Graham Bartlett, the force’s
divisional commander for Brighton and Hove, demanding why officers
were posted opposite the venue on Friday.

Members of the Cowley Club, which was hosting a meeting of
environmental protest group Earth First, were confronted with four
uniformed officers outside the Somerfield store, opposite the venue,
snapping visitors using a paparazzi-style lens.

Sussex Police has said the photography was part of ongoing police work
to gather information to support future operations. But Mr Lepper
yesterday dismissed the police’s response and said he wanted an
explanation.

He said: “It looks more like an attempt to intimidate people going in
and out of the Cowley Club rather than genuine surveillance. To have
such a large number of uniformed officers with a camera with a
telephoto lens seems like it’s meant to deter people from going in
there.

“I accept that police need to gather information but this is a
ham-fisted way of doing it.”

Cowley Club member David Biset, who described the club as a cafe and a
meeting place for radicals, said the officers outside the building
were acting in a “deliberately intimidating manner”.

Their actions were a worrying sign of a wider problem of authoritarian
policing, he said. “Avenues of dissent are being closed down and
police feel able to treat politics as a police matter.

“There was no suggestion of anything going on outside the building.

“The police have no reason to be there beyond intimidating people. You
shouldn’t be put on a database simply for attending a meeting.”

A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said the force had nothing to add to
its earlier comment.
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