Police apologise to Quaker after unlawful arrest
'An important victory for peaceful protest.'
A Quaker arrested for protesting during the January lockdown has received an apology from the police, as well as substantial damages.
Ros Martin, from Frenchay Meeting, was one of four people arrested by Avon and Somerset police for demonstrating outside Bristol Magistrates’ Court on 25 January. Along with Paula Richardson, Taus Larsen and Rowland Dye, the sixty-year-old Friend acted in support of the ‘Colston Four’, the four defendants charged with criminal damage to the statue of Edward Colston, who traded in enslaved people.
Wearing masks and social distancing, Ros Martin and Paula Richardson wrote messages of solidarity on the pavement in water-soluble chalk, Taus Larsen arrived later playing music on a bike, and Rowland Dye held a placard highlighting Bristol’s role in the slave trade. Despite complying with police instructions to leave, and acting independently, all four were arrested, detained and issued with Fixed Penalty Notices under what was later ruled as an unlawful interpretation of the Covid regulations. In a statement agreed with the claimants, the police said the arrests had been made on the basis of ‘a misunderstanding of the legal effect of the regulations’ and admitted all four ‘were unlawfully arrested’.
Ros Martin told the Friend that the arrests were ‘ludicrous’ and motivated by ‘intimidation and humiliation’. She said that an inaccurate account of the arrests on the Avon and Somerset police website had been taken down and replaced with an apology. ‘My protest that morning was silenced by police officers manhandling me into a police van, then into a police cell and then by trying to smear my good name and character. This is an important victory for peaceful protest on several accounts: [It] sends an important message to chief officers across the UK that peaceful, safe protest in support of racial justice and other important causes must be allowed. It shows that those who are campaigning for racial justice will not be silenced,’ she said.
The apologies followed a legal challenge and are thought to be the first time a police force has admitted it misapplied coronavirus powers to ban protests.
Ros Martin said she plans to give the damages to charity.
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