Avon police raid Irish travellers (1)
01 January 1991
Avon police raid Irish travellers
artdoc February=1992
Irish travellers in Bristol believe that a campaign of hatred
against them by residents and the local press is behind a series
of dawn raids on December 4 in which 28 people, including four
children, were arrested and three caravans impounded. Only two
people have been charged with any offences, with the remainder
released on police bail. The travellers believe that the raids
and police comments in the media blaming them for hundreds of
local crimes amount to a conspiracy to drive them from the area.
Operation Capture involved 150 police officers, DHSS officials
and fraud investigators, according to the officer in charge
Detective Superintendent Alun Howells. The operation, which began
at 7am, raided three unofficial travellers' sites where 24 people
were arrested; another three people were arrested in a raid on
a private house and another man later. Following the arrests one
of the solicitors acting for the travellers said he would be
looking into questions about some of the procedures adopted by
the police, and expressed surprise at the length of time most of
the travellers were held in custody. Some were not released until
over 30 hours after their arrest. The police raids follow almost
12 months of campaigning by local residents to oust the
travellers who have been living in the area for over a year.
Local Tory MPs Jonathan Sayeed and Jack Aspinall have been
backing the residents objections to the creation of official
sites in the Bristol area and there have been angry outbursts
against the travellers at packed consultation meetings to discuss
where temporary emergency sites can be provided to clear
travellers from the unofficial sites.
The travellers say that they feel themselves to be under siege
and accuse residents of videoing them and calling them names on
the street. `The papers are making us out to be criminals', they
say, but `if we had committed all those crimes, we wouldn't be
living here. We'd probably be living in nice houses like them.'
The travellers are demanding that action be taken to stop the
invasion of their privacy by video cameras, to recover their
property from the police, for false charges to be dropped and for
compensation for damage caused during the raids. They also want
swift action by Avon to find them permanent sites.
Statewatch, Volume 2 no 1, January/February 1992