POLICE REVENGE FOR GROSVENOR SQUARE - Roland Muldoon
if many readers of The Week don't already know whose side the police ee eae a few liberals mst be shaken by their recent spate of activities. Their presistant frustration of left wing activities (recent victims peepee the Maoist in Hyde Park), and their indulgent persecution of black people is now coupled with a campaign to jail militant anti-Vietnam war demonstrators. On November 6 at Marlborough Street Court two anti-war demonstrators were sentenced to 3 months imprisonment for assaulting police officers. The first, Paul Trewhela, a past victim of South African police burtality, was accused of biting a policeman on the wrist in the vicinity of Oxford Street. The defending lawyer carved up police evidence and showed so many discrepancies in the case that the public in the court had it not been such a serious matter would have fallen about laughing, especially when the police witness said that the defendant had stated; "I am above the Law and will find my salvation in Chairman Mao", When the defendant's lawyer said"a Marxist Leninist wouldn't say anything so stupid as that this was completely ignored. Credence was given only to statements by the police which (contradicting doctors evidence) said that the policeman with a fractured wrist caused by the bite, carried the defendant to the black maria after he had been thrown to the grvund and been beaten up by the defendant, All of this had happened to the police officer in front of a police cordon. I shall leave the reader to draw his own conclusions. Another case, to which I was Witness, claimed that Toni Pinschof was charged with breaking a policeman's ankle, Although he pleaded guilty to resisting arrest he denied striking the policeman. Even the policeman apparently claimed in court that Pinschof punched him in the chest (here again the reader can draw his own conclusions). My evidence was that I saw Pinschof quietly leaving Grosvenor Square gardens when he was pounced on by four policemen,including an inspector, who, when making this random arrest shouted "We've got you, you vicious little animal" and dragged him across the park, during which he lost his glasses. I approached the scene(with as much middle-class effect that I could summon)and suggested the reason for Pinschof's struggle was because of his attack and his loss of sight. They dragged him off and I stayed looking for his glasses. Telling this to the court I was accused of not telling the truth. A photograph was then shown to me which showed Pinschof trying to escape from his assailants. When I said hat this photograph had obviously been taken after Pinschof's assault by the law, Police Magistrate Robey implied he was only interested in the policeman's claim of a broken ankle and with the protection of the police. It was obvious that my evidence was of no use to him because it would give grounds to Pinschof's statement that the police had assaulted him, He is now waiting to be sent to detention centre for 3 months. So, once again we learn that our struggle in solidarity with the Vietnamese is at one with the struggle against the establishment of our own society.
HRKHE Ed. The VSC has already registered a protest against these vicious sentences
to Roy Jenkins the Home Secretary. It is obvious that these protests
will carry more weight coming from individuals, Anyone wishing to
register a protest should right to: Roy Jenkins, M.P. House of Commons,
London S.W.1.