Once again that part of the state apparatus known as the judicial system shows its inhumane face. A group of people decide to help the homeless, so the occupy an empty building, set up places for the homeless to sleep, organise a street kitchen to help feed, run an advice centre to help homeless people find their way through the maze of bureaucracy that can exclude them form what they are entitled to, and what does this system do? It evicts them and then imprisons those trying to help the homeless. They were obviously stopping somebody or other from making money from the homeless, so they had to be punished.
Five Activists who had occupied Liverpool’s old Bank of England building to provide shelter and feed the city’s homeless people have been jailed for almost 3 months each.Read the full article HERE:
The Love Activists moved into the unoccupied building in the middle of April to set up a support centre for Liverpool’s homeless people, incorporating places to sleep, an advice centre and a street kitchen, from where they were evicted in the early hours of 12 May and the homeless activists arrested.
The defendants were charged in relation to the occupation of the old bank building in Castle Street, Liverpool city centre, as part of a protest over lack of support for the homeless and government austerity.John Hall, 50; John Rice, 22; Chelsea Stafford, 19; James Jones, 20, and James Allanson, 20, all pleaded guilty to trespass while a possession order was in place.The court also heard a minimum of £91,573 was spent in policing the protest, while the operation to arrest the protesters cost around £27,000. Almost all this budget was used in paying overtime to officers so as to create a heavy oppressive police presence around the building where they used a dispersal order to clear supporters away from the building and, the activists said, were refusing to allow supplies to be taken into the building.The Love Activists’ occupation had growing support among residents and businesses of Liverpool. A poll on the Liverpool Echo website at that time gave a majority of those asked believing the group should stand firm against their eviction order.
