Now that the dust has settled, I've pieced together what happened.
I sent out a press release beforehand, stating our intention to protest outside the police station about the police continually arresting and harassing me without justification.
I later discovered that one local paper, the Express and Star, decided to forward it to the Police. When I arrived at 8.45 am, I could see police officers guarding all the entrances to the building. They spotted me, and 2 officers followed me to a cafe where I met up with Mike and Keith. Within a few minutes, there were 6 officers crowded around us inside the cafe, and after a while, they received instruction on their radios to arrest us, which they did.
They told us they had received intelligence that we intended to climb on the roof of the police station, and damage it, and so they were arresting us on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
The intelligence can have amounted to no more than our press release which had been forwarded to them. No reasonable person reading it could have believed that it indicated an intention to climb on the building and damage it, and if that had been our intention we are hardly likely to have put out a press release. When they eventually questioned me it came out that their reasoning went something like this: these 3 people in this cafe are linked to fathers rights protests. Fathers rights protestors climb buildings; therefore these 3 people intend to climb our building; they could not climb our building without damaging it in the process; therefore they must have conspired to criminally damage our building. Wow!
The Police's true purpose was to prevent us standing on their door-step and exposing their previous harassment of me. They couldn't arrest us for that, so instead they contrived this nonsense about us intending to damage the building. They are shamelessly abusing their powers in order to stop me speaking out.
Conspiracy is an indictable offence, and so arrest for conspiracy allowed them to search each of our homes while we were detained in the cells. They searched mine and took away my computer, and some documents, which they returned to me when I was released without charge yesterday evening. However, had they found grounds, however spurious, to continue their investigations, they could have retained my computer for months, and without it, I couldn't have carried on with my consultancy business. They may have searched Mike's and Keith's homes as well.
The implications for all of us in this movement could be serious. If other police forces learn from this and do the same it could mean that, simply because of our historic association with roof-top protests, any equal parenting protesters who are planning a peaceful demo may automatically be suspected of conspiring to commit criminal damage, leading to their arrest, search of their home, and removal of key items like computers!
What price democracy and freedom of speech now? On a practical level, the next step is for the 3 of us to sue the police. If they are allowed to get away with this, they will believe they can get away with anything.
Regards,
Ray
Update 4:30 pm 19th March I have just made an appointment with a leading human rights lawyer with a view towards taking action against the police for wrongful arrest.
We were released with no charges and no bail. The police are taking no further action (I’ve seen it incorrectly reported elsewhere we were released on bail).
Update 21st March Being charged with harassment
I have now been notified that I am being charged with harassing my ex-wife because I am distributing leaflets about her (which I have already been allows to do by the High Court).
Note, this charge is (supposedly) nothing to do with my arrest a few days ago. Of course, we know full well that it is. The intention of the police is to silence me from protesting against them.
Update 30th May Spiderman acquitted!
The Birmingham Evening Mail ran a story about me on 17th March, headlined: "Spider-man arrested for harassing ex-wife." I would be nice if similar coverage were given to my acquittal yesterday.
I was found not guilty yesterday by Judge Qureshi at Wolverhampton Magistrates Court of harassing my ex-wife. I was charged with harassing her by distributing booklets about her. My defence was that the High Court had previously ruled I could do so, and that I was arrested for doing exactly the same thing in 2001, and on that occasion, the CPS read the booklet and said there was nothing unlawful in it.
I wrote in advance of yesterday's trial to the CPS asking for copies of the 2001 records of my arrest to support my defence. They wrote back, refusing to show them to me, saying they were not relevant, and that anyway the documents show "There is no record of any CPS involvement."
On the morning of the first day of the trial, the judge gave a formal reprimand to the CPS for purporting to speak on behalf of the court in this letter, without the court's authority to do so. The judge then directed that the police custody log of the 2001 arrest must be produced in court that afternoon.
When it appeared, the log showed: "Person In Custody (Raymond Barry) distributing leaflets/booklets published by himself about his former wife..." "Person in custody released following review of evidence with CPS lawyers as to conduct of this person in custody..."
In short, when the CPS wrote to me saying they had no involvement in the 2001 arrest, that was untrue.
I had also argued that the police only decided to press this harassment charge because I and some friends tried to protest against their harassment of me outside Bilston St Police station, Wolverhampton. Nothing had been done about the harassment matter for the 2 weeks following my arrest, then on the day of the protest, 18th March, 11 statements were signed and dated that same day to support the harassment charge. I argued this could not be pure co-incidence, and that the charge was only brought to teach me a lesson for daring to protest against the Police.
After acquitting me, the judge made a number of criticisms of the Police and of the CPS, saying in particular: "The incident of 2001 in the defence statement was summarily dismissed in an off-hand way by CPS, yet that document proved crucial."
